Friday, April 24, 2009

5 - The Last Tute Continued - and www.buildyourwildself.com

ANOTHER FANTASTIC WEBSITE TO ASSIST WITH CREATING
A CREATIVE PRIMARY SCHOOL CLASSROOM


Our last lesson for ICT was extremely enjoyable and such a rewarding experience. We were introduced to so many websites for creating animations and encouraging us to be creative in the classroom using ICT rather than traditional methods. Although some sites were not appropriate for usage in a Primary Classroom they were still fun to use and made me understand that not everyhting on the Internet is appropriate for children to use even though it may seem harmless. As a teacher when planning a lesson incorporating the use of the Internet it's a good idea to use the website yourself first before allowing students to use it in your classroom.

The final website I would like to discuss that we visited, was a great one to encourage children to be artisitic, but also introduces them to many different types of animal species. The url address is http://www.buildyourwildself.com/. This is an American site sponsored by the American Wildlife Conservatory Society & the New York Zoos and Aquarium. The site allows children to create a half human/half animal male or female character by allowing them to select various features such as - eyes, mouth, clothes, ears, arms/wings, face, tails, skin tone and even backround (i.e the ocean, the sky etc.)

After creating a character and clicking 'I'm done', students will receive a name for their character automatically created by the site. This page will also show a list of the features chosen for the students character and a description of the animal that the features are from. For example my made up character is featured below. Her name is Angelique the pea- bat-ingo - ondor - bird and her head gear is from a Peacock crest and Chilean Flamingo legs!

This is a great site to use in English, Art Class or even Science Class.
In English class it can be used to create new characters in a narrative story to write about and encourages children to use their imagination.

In Art Class children could come up with their own character and then complete a sketch of it for a class Art display.

In Science students can use the website to learn about specific animal features.

Again I used my children as guinea pigs and they loved this website. They loved the sound effects too as you change the background for your character. For example the jungle background has a mosquito zooming in the air and the actual sound a mosquito makes too.

This semster of ICT was fabulous and I look forward to using these technologies in my classroom, who knows I may even use them during teaching rounds.

5 - Animations - www.reasonablyclever.com/mini/kidsafe.htm

CREATE YOUR OWN LEGO CHARACTERS WEBSITE

I absolutely loved this site www.reasonablyclever.com/mini/kidsfae.htm and could spend all day creating different lego characters. The site allows you to create your own character by changing different parts of the lego characters' body including arms, legs, hair styles, skin colour, items to hold in their hand and even the background.

Children would have fun creating their own lego characters, printing them and displaying them in the classroom. They may even write a story and save their characters images and then put them into their word processed stories in technology class.

As this site is 'kid safe' unlike many other lego websites, I used my children as guinea pigs and asked them to create a character using the site. Well I could not get them off the computer. The problem was we had to print each one (mind you they created 5)!!! My children are 4 and 6 years of age and they both found the site easy to use although my four year old obviously needed a little assistance but enjoyed the experience. My children both took their printouts to school and kinder for 'Show & Tell' and their teachers asked me for the website.


Some of the characters created by the family are below:


Sunday, April 19, 2009

4 -M&Ms Spreadsheets/Graphs, Learning Federation Website & Dust Echoes

WEEK 4 - M&Ms - and creating a spreadsheet & graphs, the Learning Federation Website, Mind Mapping Software & Dust Echoes Website

The focus of this tute was 'fun ways' of encouraging students to collect data, enter data into a spreadsheet and create a graph or chart to evaluate the results. Ellen was my partner for this task and using the worksheet we sorted the plain chocolate m&ms into colours and counted the number of each colour from a 250g pack.

This activity is a simple but effective way of encouraging students to count and introducing the concept of sorting or even classifying things. Mathematics comes into play once the data is entered into excel and the number of m&ms of each colour and altogether can automatically be calculated by using the sum function in excel. If we had a mixture of types of m&ms such as peanut and crispy the graphs could become even more intersting. Excel is a very useful program for students to learn to use as they can create graphical presentations of their data such as pie graphs, bar graphs etc. for school projects.

With using confectionery the only concern these days are allergies. Obviously a teacher would know or find out what students are allergic to and perhaps bring in an alternative or send a note home to parents stating what students are allergic to and asking them to bring in something i.e. jelly beans.

The m&ms website at http://m-ms.com.au/ is an excellent site for kids. It's very colourful and offers them many ways to interact such as; competitions, games and even kids cooking ideas. The site also allows children to copy and paste images of the m&ms characters.

DUST ECHOES WEBSITE

This website http://www.abc.net.au/dustechoes/ is wonderful for students studying Aboriginal History, Art & Culture. It features twelve animated dreamtime stories about Aborignal love, customs, loyalty and land just to name a few. The site offers teachers example study guides for each of the stories presented and the films are very beautiful to watch and in language children can understand.


The story I watched this lesson was 'Namorrodor' quite a scary story for children I thought and I probably would not show this story to younger students maybe Grades 5 & 6. However, as a mother of two I could really relate to the story as I am quite protective and cautious with my children.

This story is retold in the images below. The two important messages of the story are;

  1. That babies should not sleep unprotected in the bush and

  2. Meat should not be cooked on the fire at night as the smell attracts 'Namorrodor' - insects and creatures.

The story is about a mother out in the bush with her three children and she wraps the baby in a blanket, puts the baby to sleep and places him on the ground. Meanwhile her two children find a piece of meat and place it in the fire. The mother gets mad with them for doing this and senses something is wrong. She then sees the Namorrodor try to grab her baby and she fetches a stick. The namorrodor is thrown high into the sky and her children have been saved.

NAMORRODOR

To encourage and guide students to complete a retell they need to be able to use copying and pasting using the print screen function and using paint. It is quite a cumbersome process to pause an image and collect various screen dumps of images and paste them into inspirations or word. Another way students can retell the story is by drawing the images themselves or giving each scene a title word and drawing a flow chart of words/themes in each scene in the story.

I truly believe this sight is magnificent and students would throroughly enjoy using it. I intend to use this sight for my Humanities assignment on Aboriginal Culture and teaching children about Aboriginal History.

The stories are as mentioned previously told in a language that we can understand and the animations are especially suited to children.

THE LEARNING FEDERATION

This website contains digital curriculum content to support teaching and learning. The materials are available free of charge to Australian and New Zealand schools at http://www.thelearningfederation.edu.au/default.asp.

There are so many games on this site for any topic you can think of it is just amazing. I will most definitely be using this site when I'm out teaching. One of the games I really loved that really simplifies quite a difficult area to understand (the trade market) is Fish Market. The learning area of this game is SOSE and the objectives of the game are that:
  • Students identify opportunities for profitable trading.

  • Students estimate market value by comparing supply and demand.

  • Students explore the value of networking to identify market opportunities.

  • Students operate a business in an international environment

  • Students review business options and make decisions to increase profitability.

  • The pace and variety of trading opportunities encourages active engagement.

  • Students search for a rare, prized fish.

  • There is an option to print a summary of business outcomes.


2 - ONLINE GAMES - Development Technology Process

WEEK 2 - VELS ICT: DESIGN PROCESS & QUIA GAMES

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



  1. 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

Development – QUIA Games – website
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.




Wednesday, April 1, 2009

5 - sketchswap.com

This website was one of my favourites along with www.reasonablyclever.com/mini/kidsafe.htm
Both sites are exciting and so easy to use.

Sketchswap encourages people to complete a sketch of anything using a mouse (like in paint) and then click on the button to swap images. The user is then sent an image from somebody else in the world.
In other words, like an email but you do not know who is sending you the image or what you will receive.

I used this site at home with my children and was a bit frightened as to what was going to come back. Fortunately, the image sent to us was appropriate but I probably would not use this site in the classroom in case a student did receive an inappropriate image. However, I would like to find a site that allows children to do this within the school for Grades Prep to year 6 as I think it would be great in Art Class (incorporating ICT) it's fun and encourages children to draw.

I am not a very good drawer, my image is below (a bart simpson type character) and the second image is what I got back after swapping. The image I received is fantastic.





















The first image is the one I drew and the second is the one I received.



5- Animation - abc.net.au/rollercoaster/rollermache

This website www.abc.net.au/rollercoaster/rollermache was fantastic. It allows children to create storyboards and their own ads or movies. This website showed the storyboard of my daughter's favourite ad on ABC kids - the Roller Mache ad where the rabbit eats a carrot and then pulls it out of its mouth and the carrot is now a group of 5 people attached. I remember making these at Primary School, where you fold a piece of paper (like a concertina fold) then draw a person and cut it out making sure some of the drawing is attached to the fold such as the arms and legs. Once you cut it out it ends up being four people holding hands instead of just one person.

There are many many wonderful sites on abc.net.au for children and this one in particular is fantastic in inspiring and assisting children to create an animation. This site offers children inspiration by featuring interviews and sketches from many Australian animators and their creations. For example Darcy Prendergest who created the animation with the rabbit as mentioned earlier, he created it in his own bedroom with plasticine, a light and his own video camera on a tripod.! It also features a sketch of a cartoon "Pet" from Rick Carton a self taught illustrator and creator of the book series Edgar & Ellen and in a short video he shows children how easy it is to draw "Pet" from the series.

The site features pages on - Inspiration, Planning an animation (storyboards, drawings etc), Creating an animation, A Gallery of animations and even an option for students to upload their works. It also has a competitions page for students to enter their work etc. It is very easy to navigate and 'shild friendly' with sounds and images that move. I would use this site in my classroom to encourage creative thinking and even for art classes when children are using platicine. You could teach children how to make their creation look like it is moving and create a class short film. What Fun!!! Being a music teacher, you could also add suitable music to the class film in music class. Animation could be integrated into many studies.



5 - Making Films with zimmertwins.com.au


This site was far more suitable for film making then dfil.com however, still a little complicated for children to use initially. I believe a teacher should guide them through the site first and then allow them to create their own film. Child users usually work out how to use the site quite quickly as they are not afraid to click buttons on the site, which means they are learning from their mistakes.

The content and images on the site are much more 'child friendly' hence its association with the ABC. I did try to access the site recently and could only access http://www.zimmertwins.com/ instead of .au. This site offers many options in film making, it allows students to watch a film, to add to the film or create one from scratch.

I can see this website used in an English classroom as children are learning about writing stories and being asked to write the ending to a story. A teacher may compare this to say writing the ending to a film and how different people will come up with different endings.