Glogster

Digital Video - making a movie

Just had a bit of a go at creating a movie file for a Grade One class on fairytales. It would be good to make a movie of the children creating a fairy tale of their own or making a movie that showed the student's own favourite fairytales.I saved it as an email file, so it wouldn't be too big for uploading.

I will give you the hot tip...I won't be entering any short film festivals!  However, can I say I think this would be a great way to get the kids involved in the 'create' stage of the learning taxonomy regardless of the topic.

If I continue with the fairy tale theme, we could ask the children to make a movie based on a few fairy tales. Similar to what Hollywood has done with Shrek which uses many characters and similar themes from a number of different fairytales.  Perhaps the students could create a new 'baddy' in the three little pigs or three bill goats gruff?

I have taken some time to prepare a short SWOT Analysis, in the lead up to Assignment Two.

Strengths

• Fun and easy to do
• Extremely cost effective.  Windows Media Maker (the software will be on all computers), you don’t even need a video camera to create the movie, just a series of still images is enough
• Visually appealing and can really tap into emotions with the use of music
• Need to plan and design the story in the movie – encourages students to build their design and literacy skills as well as all others
• Movies can be used across all KLA’s in the curriculum.

Weaknesses

• Can be time consuming – especially if not planned correctly
• Copyright and attribution – if students aren’t taught the importance of attributing others work, students could be breaking the law – particularly in a non-educational setting where “fair-dealing” doesn’t apply
• Some limitations with the software
• Technology does have some flaws - the children may skip ahead missing out on a vital component of the movie making step, or not save work so they may need to do it all over again.

Opportunities

• Children can teach their parents or siblings who don’t know how easy it is to make a movie – it gives the child the opportunity to be the teacher
• Students become more independent in their learning. They can go ahead and build their movie and the teacher can just supervise or assist where necessary
• Great collaboration opportunities with other students in the school community, not just linked to the curriculum – what about a competition amongst the school community to design a movie about their “kool skool” with age or grade divisions? Get the school band and choirs involved
• Showing movies as a lead up to a school movie night
• Show movies to new students IE the fairy tale movie could be shown to preppie students.

Threats

• Parents might not be happy about their children’s photos being on the web if a movie is published publically
• In today’s society, parents may not have the time to work on movies outside of school hours with their children, they may not have computers at home, so if not done in the school, some children will miss out, and maybe parents will put up a block because they think it will be too hard to use the technology.

Podcasting in the classroom

The podcast activity, whilst time consuming, was beneficial.  I can see how one podcast can get kids interested in learning about a topic.  By using some carefully chosen words – in this case “Poo”, I hope to get my grade 5/6/7 kids interested in Science, Arts and English.

I have chosen a podcast from the ABC’s New Inventors Program.   

Click here for the ABC new Inventors Program Podcast

I only plan to show the first invention which is a ‘poo catcher’.  It was invented by a man who hurt his shoulder and could no longer pick up horse manure using a shovel.

The focus of the program is getting a good idea, inventing a product to satisfy a consumer need and then and perhaps most importantly, marketing the product. The following activities could follow this podcast viewing.

1. Coming up with an idea for a product we need
2. Inventing the product,
3. Create a marketing campaign.

We as teachers may need to put some boundaries around the invention otherwise we could be doing the unit all year. Alternatively you could just have your students do one component of the above eg, the marketing campaign for the poo catcher or designing modifications to the product based on science. These could include making it lighter, better manoeuvrability etc.

Podcasts can also be used in other ways, not just to introduce a topic. Some ideas might include:-

1. Assess students and train teachers in literacy development
2. Assess students speaking abilities in Languages Other Than English (Japanese students can upload their speaking test into a wiki for the teacher to mark)
3. Record the students homework activities as a podcast for them to listen to on their ipods or laptops.
4. Create a group song or story, that students need to research and collaborate on together.
5. Encourage students to work as news reporters in radio media (as per Robyn’s example in the discussion forum this week).

Of course I can see some issues with the podcasting. Perhaps not all students will have access to ipods or laptops and technology can let us down at the best of times.

Time flies when you are having fun!

While I am waiting for my chosen podcast to upload into podomatic, I thought I would reflect just quickly on how time consuming these activities can be.  I hope that when I become a teacher I am organised and have researched my units of work and lessons well enough so that I can incorporate podcasts and videos to sufficiently engage my students.  

At this point I can easily see however, why some teachers don’t embrace multi-media.  The time it takes to find the right video and podcasts for your audience, is very frustrating (well for me it is).  My plan is to be organised so that I don’t just fall back into simple, time efficient and more to the point – ‘less-engaging’ lessons because I haven’t had the time to research good movies and podcasts.

Reflecting on Digital Images

I am working through another incredibly interesting week in the world of ICT's.  The readings this week have asked me to look further into the world of online digital images, podcasting and videos.

I have just finished editing a digital image of my daughter and I have reduced the size of the photo so that it is suitable for viewing on line (to 40Kb). This type of activity would be useful in a school setting in a number of ways including:-

• Showing the picture on an IWB and having a class discussion using a See, Think, Wonder thinking routine. (What do you see, what do you think about the little girl and what do you wonder...) It could start discussions about emotions, colour, drawing).
• Use the picture to write a story about the little girl. This could be the front cover of a class book.
• Using the IWB encourage the children to change the image to get them involved in the software and the technology.  Using Picnik (picknik.com) children can add frames, colours, pictures to the photo.

I really enjoyed this activity, and am looking forward to the next two activities on podcasting and video making.

Working legally, safely and ethically online

As an educator who will be encouraging students to embrace technology there are a number of issues I will need to be aware of.  These include:-

• Copyright regulations
• Exposure to inappropriate material
• Safety of our children (stranger danger, cyber-bullying)
• Privacy

Common sense applies to a few of these issues, particularly Copyright and Privacy.  Generally if it is another person's work it needs to be referenced. The various legislation's and policies in place will guide me in this area. (Connectivism Theory really has merit - I don't know what the policies are but I know where to go to get it!). When using blogs and wiki's in a classroom context it will be important to educate the children on these also.

The Official Guide to Copyright Issues for Australian Schools and TAFE (2008) refers to 'fair dealing'. It states:-
"Students rely on fair dealing to copy and communicate third party material (other people’s work).  For fair dealing to apply, the use must be ‘fair’ and for the purpose of:

• research or study for class (eg copying an image off the internet to include in a homework exercise  or using music from a CD in a podcast or vodcast for a school assignment)
• criticism or review (eg reviewing a book, CD or film for homework)
• reporting the news (eg writing an article for the school newsletter on a current news item) 
• parody or satire (eg writing a humorous or satirical imitation of a serious newspaper article or advertisement for a class exercise)

Students copying and communicating material under ‘fair dealing’ need to attribute the source material, the copyright owner and author of the work (if different)."

Parents will also need to be educated on the issues of inappropriate websites and the safety of our children. Virus software that have built in child monitoring (some popular versions are Net Nanny and  Norton Online Safety Minder) can be an excellent purchase for the home computer.  Schools generally have a similar software installed to block access to inappropriate sites.

These ethical, legal and safe issues must be continually assessed and considered by teachers who embrace Web 2.0 technologies.

SWOT of Blogs in Education

Thank you Julienne for setting up the group wiki on Blogs.

Refer the link for an overview of the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats of using Blogs in an educational environment.
http://juliennemorrison.wikispaces.com/Blog+Swot+Analysis

I was recently talking about this course with two of my teacher friends, one a primary school teacher and the other a secondary school teacher.  Interestingly they hadn't really heard of blogging.  They had heard of wiki's but didn't really understand how it might be used in a school setting. I am going to send them some information so they can do some research.

Use in the classroom (primary school context)

• Reflective journals for Year 7 students. Linked to overall assessment of a number of KLAs but particularly English.  Perhaps each week they report on what activities they did for the week, incorporating group sessions, PMIs and deBonos Thinking Hats.  Much the same as we do in this course.
• Developing class blogs (all ages but managed by the teacher) - that focused on 
• communicating with other schools as part of SOSE and perhaps linking in with a school in another country with traditional aussie recipes, music, etc; 
• a school music/sport/team building camp of some description - writing home to mum and dad, and to the school posting pictures and reflections;
• how to blogs? linking to websites and factsheets