This week we focused on the Technology Design Process from the VELS Standards for ICT and we completed an activity in groups of 3-4 people where we had to 'design a frog that jumps using the materials provided'.
These were:
Cardboard Card
Picture of a frog
- Rubber band
Sticky Tape & Glue
During our design process we recorded our attempts on a design brief template with the headings:
- Investigate/design - where we came up with ideas and drew and described our attempts.
- Produce - Again a sketches were drawn of what we came up with 'produced'.
- Problem to be solved: In this case 'to design a frog that jumps using the materials provided'.
- Resources: Cardboard card, picture of a frog, rubber band & sticky tape.
- Analyse/Evaluate - looking at our outcome, testing it and suggsting how our outcome could have been improved.
This sort of task is trying to move kids into a higher order of thinking and should be done for at least one hour a week at school. During this sort of task students are grouped preferably in mixed abilities so that children can learn from each other. The same child should not write up the brief each week, it should change from week to week, so that each child has a chance to process what they have learnt from the activity and be able to write it down in formal language. During the whole process it is very important to encourage students for any contributions so that they feel like a valued class member.
This activity reminded me of writing up Science pracs at high school such as the hypothesis, method, apparatus, outcome and conclusion where you also suggest improvements.
Our class came up with some fantastic ways of making a frog jump and each groups idea was different. Our group tried a concertina type design but found a simple one fold with the frog stuck to the rubber band and pulled around the paper made the frog jump.
Fonts are another example of design and a great activity is getting children to physically draw different fonts rather than always printing them.
QUIA – website http://www.quia.com/ and http://www.quia.com/subscription/
The Quia website offers many online facilities to teachers:
· It allows them to create lessons
· To maintain an online calendar and schedule
· To upload images and audio clips
· To copy and modify activities on the site to suit individual classes and student needs
· And most importantly it allows teachers to share these activities with students, friends and colleagues anywhere in the world.
The site offers a 30-day free trial period and then yearly subscription for educational purposes is $49 a year.
QUIA Games
During our workshop we focused on the Quia Games section of the website and our class created many different types of games and activities from the list below.
o Matching game
o Flash cards
o Concentration game
o Word search puzzle
o Battleship
o Challenge board
o Columns activity
o Hangman game
o Jumbled words
o Ordered list activity
o Picture perfect activity
o Pop-ups
o Rags-to-riches game
o Scavenger hunt
o Cloze activity
o Patterns
We also created quizzes and the site used 10 types of questions:
o Multiple choice
o True-false
o Pop-up
o Multiple correct
o Fill-in
o Initial answer
o Short answer
o Essay
o Matching
o Ordering
As my passion in life is music I created a hangman game using music terms such as instruments, band, duets etc and I also developed a multiple choice quiz. After completion we were given a URL address where the game could be accessed. Mine were at:
http://www.quia.com/hm/500163.html - Hangman game (from the activities section)
http://www.quia.com/quiz/1755587.html - Music Quiz of multiple choice questions
Unfortunately the game links are no longer available as the QUIA website allows free usage for 30 days however schools could pay for teachers to use the site in the school for $49 a year.
Below you will see images of the games that I created; a multiple choice test set of 5 questions about music and a music based game of hangman. I decided to use the hangman version where a teddy bear is floating in the sky with balloons and each wrong letter guess show the teddy bear losing grip of the balloons and if you miss all letters in the word the balloons pop and the teddy bear falls out of the sky.
A teacher could create a game like this for students to practise/learn their weekly spelling words and send the kids the link via email or a notice to their parents. The students could create a game in groups to share with the class too. It’s a fun and interactive way for kids to learn. During our class other student’s told us their quia game number and we typed in the link and played each other’s games and it was so much fun, so I imagine children would thoroughly enjoy sharing a game they have created with their teacher and their friends.
ZOETROPES
I remember making these in a Primary School Art Class. They were fantastic and created an illusion of action from rapid movement. We thought it was amazing how the image of a boy looked like he was running.
Greg featured a pdf file on LMS (a pamphlet) that outlines the four step process to creating a zoetrope. I thought this would be an excellent resource for a class activity in the classroom where students can create their own zoetropes of say a Magic Possum if studying 'Possum Magic'.
I did a google search for zoetropes and the best one I saw was at http://www.flickr.com/photos/doctorow/2623159461/ and it was a 3D zoetrope where all toys were placed impeccibly on a turntable and strope lights were also used to create the illusion of the Toy Story characters moving. Check it out it's amazing. This would be a good example to show primary school students.
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