Interactive FUN!!

It’s been a long time since I blogged, but here we all are again. Today in out tute we are focussing on a lot of interactive website that involve movie/ picture/ multi-media production. We are required to make a movie using this website:

http://www.zimmertwins.com/


This is a really fabulous and easy to use website that is highly interactive. It is a great site for students to enhance their ICT skills in that students are required to navigate their way around the site. They need to click on the Create Movie icon and then choose Make From Scratch. From there, they just select the icons/ scene aspects they wish to include to demonstrate the subject the movie is based on.

A good way to incorporate this ICT program into the curriculum, I believe, would be for students to demonstrate messages of value, such as respecting each other, the effects of bullying etc.
I would definitely use this program.


Next in today’s session, we were shown another program called dfilm.
There are many uses for this site. I had a very fun time making a movie using this program. Dfilm, is a movie-making program, similar to Zimmertwins and also easy to navigate around.

These are the steps you need to follow in order to create a really fun, interactive video.
- You can choose the setting of the scene
- Choose the characters
- Write in the dialogue between characters
- Add background music
- Give the movie a title
- Then send it to emails for others to view.
The movie I made was about a rendezvous between two people who were happy to see each other.

After much trying, unfortunately I have been unable to link the movie so that you can view it. Sorry everybody. Trust me, it was really cool!! Well, I enjoyed it anyway!

Here is the actual web address for your information anyhow.

http://www.dfilm.com/live/moviemaker.html

After testing it out, I would probably use this site, as well as the Zimmertwins site. I believe students can really use their imaginations to create this type of ICT movie, in which they can possibly use literacy stories and narratives and portray these in a digital format.



Now for the next site... it's called Build Your Wild Self!!!

http://www.buildyourwildself.com/


This site is great! Here's what you do. You use a heap of different cartoon characteristics to create an animalistic type figure to represent the self or another. It’s heaps of fun and very easy to navigate. Students in early years primary school will enjoy this program as it requires skills, however, the students do not have to have a great amount of ICT knowledge. All they need to do is click onto Build Your Wild Self and then go through all the many types of characteristics and create an imaginary self. Students may wish to do this to represent themselves, or characters from texts, or characters from their own narratives.



Wow, this tute has been intense. We have looked at so many different interactive programs that could be useful within the classroom. Reasonably clever is another site that students could navigate easily using ICT skills and have fun using their creative flairs. In this program, students use lego to apply characteristics of familiar characters from a variety of texts, which is highly engaging for students as lego is a very popular medium for play. Here is the site...
http://www.reasonablyclever.com/

Greg has now introduced us to another great site: http://www.sketchswap.com/

This site contains a program called sketchswap and it is a very fun and easy to use program. All you need to do is go onto the website and from their begin drawing in the space permitted, then you submit your drawing and a new drawing will appear for you. It is fun and interactive and would be a great ICT activity for students, especially to ehance drawing skills. Studemts would be interested and engaged in the anticipation of what the final drawing would look like.
This is the picture it created from my original drawing. It looks nothing like mine ha ha.

Well, it’s been a busy morning to say the least. I have taken away some very useful tips and program suggestions which will definitely assist me when I begin my teaching career. I will attempt to use all of the programs in my classroom.


Information Communication Technology has become such a big and important, not to mention, positive part of the contemporary primary school curriculum. Before starting this course unit, I had a very limited knowledge of ICT and its relevance and benefits within the classroom. Children today are technologically competent from a very young age as technology has grown to become a crucial part of their daily lives. It is important for me as a graduate teacher to have a sound knowledge of ICT and ways to incorporate this into my future classroom.

I have already applied knowledge I have gained from this unit, as whilst on placement, my class was studying Indigenous Australia for their integrated unit and I introduced the students to the Dust Echoes website, as they were required to create a Glogster. The students were very excited by the website and chose to link it to their Glogsters.

I plan to use many more of the programs introduced to me during this unit, as I have taken away a great deal from the sessions, and always want to enhance my own ICT skills and knowledge so that I can effectively enhance the skills and knowledge of my students.

Learning Learning Learning!

Hello again my faithful readers!




So today in class Greg showed us all an interesting animation clip from Dust Echoes called Mermaid Story. It had no dialogue, just background instrumental music to highlight the story that was being portrayed within the clip. The animation was a little abstract. Like something Tim Burton would create. But the message behind the story was good. Greg explained that along with these stories are synopses, study guides, lesson plans and activities based upon them, however, the slips need to be suitable for the age they are being shown to as some can be quite emotive.





We then were able to get onto the Dust Echoes site and explore the site's detail.

http://www.abc.net.au/dustechoes/

After lots of time and hard work I was able to create a diagram display using Inspiration based upon one of the dreamtime stories. I chose The Curse story. Here is a picture of the diagram I created:

I'm pretty stoked with my ability to create things within such a minimal time frame. I checked out what others had done as well and they are all really good! I would definitely use this activity in a classroom situation. You could do it with any topic, it's great!

I am aware that in VELS level 4, indigenous studies becomes a topic from the Humanities strand. Knowing this site is available, this would be an effective/ educational resource to expand students knowledge into the concept, particularly in relation to The Dreamtime.

No time to relax, moving on to the next thing... M&Ms!!

Oh No! I think we're going to be using EXCEL! I do not have a lot of knowledge with regards to using this program, compared to other Microsoft programs such as publisher and powerpoint.

I have to admit though, after scanning through the programs and utilizing the mathematical tools, the graphs that the program can produce from inserted data aren't bad at all!

The ideas Greg is talking about are great in relation to chance and data collection, with also touching on the importance of awareness of food allergies within the classroom, as sometimes the use of M&Ms, although being a fun and delicious form of engagement, in some cases may be a health issue. In this way, other coloured lollies may be appropriate, otherwise coloured counters are always available within the classroom! I have a good knowledge of anaphylaxis and I am really aware of the importance of teaching children about allergies, and applying the information in a graphic way would be really beneficial.

I had no idea that so many educational domains could be applied when referring to M&Ms! Maths, Literacy, Interpersonal Learning and even Science (design and development)

Anyway, this is the graph I created defining the number of different coloured M&Ms in a pack:

I love it!! And I am so surprised at how easy it was to create! I think creating a graph this way is a quicker, easier and more coherent way of expressing data visually. All you need to do is insert in the data into the different rows, label the row, then select Graph and from there you can use a range of formating tools to present the data colourfully, in any style of graph you choose. I chose to create a bar graph as I find these the easiest to read.

I think children would really benefit from being able to produce a graph in this format, as rather than them focussing most on manually colouring in a tangible graph, they can quickly create one and analyse the data straight away, which will also ehance their knowledge and skills of ICT.

Let's Play!!

So here we are in class learning something I thought I never would... or could for that matter- How to create an online game!!

This is turning out to me fun. We need to create a new QUIZ using our new QUIA account. The website html link for this site is as follows:
http://www.quia.com/

To sign up, we just needed to register using our names and details as well as why we require the use of the site. After resistering, we clicked onto Create a quiz.

From here comes the tough part... What is my quiz going to be about?

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So my passion in life is definitely my football team.. therefore this is my quiz i created based on my beloved Hawthorn Hawks Footy Club. However, the great thing about this site, is that you can select any topic you wish, therefore, it is easy to make it relevent to the class you are teaching. Eg. If I was teaching a unit on space for example, I could create a quiz on this particular topic and students could complete the quiz. This would challenge and enhance their own knowledge of the subject area, as well as provide a task which is fun and stimulating as well as further helping them develop compter skills and Internet navigation techniques.


I really enjoyed this using this program. I also enjoyed completing my peers quizzes.



Greg, I challenge you to click on this URL and complete my sweet quiz!!

http://www.quia.com/servlets/quia.web.QuiaWebManager?tagModuleType=104&rand=7935015















Games, like quizzes, are another fun and interactive taks students can compete using this site to enahnce knowledge and skills.
Now I have just created my very own Hangman Game using this website.

(and yes I did stick with the theme of my beloved football team).


Test your skills on my game... Good luck!!

http://www.quia.com/hm/668083.html?AP_rand=682964037&playHTML=1


















Hangman, is a fantastic game to play in the classroom, especially in relation to the development of literacy/ spelling skills. These sorts of games could be used for just about any subject area that a generalist primary teacher would teach in the classroom.

I had a really good time going around and checking out my classmates' games as well. This is a fantastic resource to have, and I would definitely use this program in a classroom as it is so easy to use and online games are a fun and effective way for students to learn.

A New Concept: Design Briefs

In today's lesson we are going to complete a task that sounds kind of fun. We are going to create a Design Brief. Greg has mentioned that the process of a design brief has been altered according to VELS in recent years. He spoke about the positives of completing a design brief and the appropriate ways to deal with stationary in the classroom.

Today's design brief is to Make The Frog Jump. These are the materials required:
A small piece of cardboard
A rubber band
Some sticky tape and
a tiny paper frog


(apparently later on in this session we will we learning how to create online games... excellent!!)

Anyway, here we go... in our pair, Chanel and I will attempt to make our little froggie jump!!


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The Outcome...

After much careful and deep thinking, Chanel and I completed out Design Brief document and used the information to successfully make our frog jump using only the materials provided.

Our Design Brief looked like this:

Problem to be solved:
We need to make the frog jump

Resources:
paper frog
cardboard strip
sticky tape
elastic band

Investigate/ Design:
Fold cardboard several times to make it spring. Cardboard needs to have air within the bends in order to allow a spring motion to occur. We need to use the elastic band to enhance the severity of the spring motion, being elastic, it is reasonable to think that if wrapped around the card it should assist the spring to create a higher flight. Obviously human power and control will need to be included to allow the motion to initiate.

Process:
We bend the card only once having one side longer than the other and placed the cardboard laying on the shorter length side to allow the raised longer side to act as a tab. The elastic band was wrapper long-ways around the card to assist with the spring. We push downwards the tabbed card side and let go to create a spring motion.

Analyse/ Evaluate:
Our frog did jump successfully and was able to spring quite a height and distance due to the design we produced.

I found this design technology activity to be fun, interesting and interactive. Students would enjoy completing this kind of task, as they are able to challenge their problem solving skills and really work hard as a group/team to create their design. If this is used as a lesson in class, it also assists students in their literacy development as they are required to use these skills to compete the actual design brief as part of their invention production. I hope to be able to apply an activity like this one in my next teaching round.

In addition, I was really pleased with our efforts, and it was great to go around the room to see other groups' designs and see how their frogs were able to jump. I didn't realise there would be so many ways! In the classroom, this would be a great opportunity to introduce the students to peer assessment whilst completing this activity and viewing / assessing other group's designs.

Interviews... EEEEEK!

Wow, the interview process definitely sounds intense! I am so glad Greg took the time to go through it all with us. I can speak on behalf of my fellow peers that this talk has been highly anticipated and definitely worthwhile. I am really thankful to now at least have a few pointers to take on board for when it comes to employment time. Luckily I had my notepad to hand to jot down notes to refer to. It's amazing how many aspects of the interview process I didn't realise were so important. I will absolutely take on all this advice to increase my chances of securing a position next year.

Workshop 2- Making Progress

Hi Readers!!

Excellent!! Today we are using Microsoft Publisher, a program I have been familiar with for a number of years!! This should help my ICT development and hopefully I won't fall behind like in the previous class. We are using this program to make a Travel Brochure of a chosen destination. I chose to do my brochure on my home town of Echuca (which is located on the border of Victoria and New South Wales). I think it turned out pretty good. A bit rushed, but hey, not bad for just a few quick minutes of publishing.

I found using Microsoft Publisher to be quite simple. Although i have had experience with this program in the past, I would think teaching students to use this program would be relatively simple, especially is they have had experience with programs like Word etc in the past.

There are so many different formats you can choose to design things with. We did brochures, however, that is just one of many options the user has. This is really beneficial, especially since in literacy classes, students from all VELS levels should gain experience in how to write for different purposes. This program allows students to present literary projects in their most suitable formats, rather than just regular Word documents which are generally suitable for narratives only. Students can use Publisher to type up Book Reports, Letters, Invitations, Recipe/ Instruction Booklets, just to name a few.

Moving on now to the concept of EPortfolios...

Greg is showing us some ePortfolios of past graduate teachers. I have to admit, it seems pretty tricky. Up until this week in the lecture Greg took, I didn't have a clue how in-depth ePortfolios were. For students as well as teachers. They appear to be a great resource anyhow and one that could really assist you during interviews. ePortfolios contain these elements:

Personal information

Current resume

Philosophy of teaching

Practical teaching experience reflections

References.

WEEK 1: GETTING STARTED

Well today is definitely going to be a day of firsts. I have created my first ever blog page using this link:

http://www.blogger.com/home

It's pretty exciting as I feel like I have a new found freedom to express my thoughts and opinions (and believe me, I have many). I had a great time accessing this site and customising my profile to look special. This was something that I found quite simple, as the site appears pretty easy to navigate around and formatting is very standard. I chose to create my blog on a blogger site rather than a Wiki due to the issues I've been having with the Wikis site in the last few weeks completing my WebQuest. It was comforting to learn from classmates that taking the 'blog spot' approch should be easier for me to master.

In today's workshop we will be learning about different ICT programs useful in primary schools. This should prove to be very beneficial for me as ICT knowledge and skills have never been assets of mine.

Let the learning begin... :)

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Just to bring everyone up to speed, we have just been playing around with MS Paint and Inspiration. I have to admit, I'm having a bit of trouble trying to keep up with everyone.

We created a concept map using Inspiration which I have never used before but really enjoyed as it was very simple. All you need to do is select the map design you wish to create, then click on the arrow icons to create the arms extending from the inital concept. Then you insert text/ picture boxes and either write in concepts, or use pictures from the lists available to demonstrate the concepts visually.

I found creating the concept map using this program to be pretty fun. I think the Inspiration program is ace and will definitely consider using it in schools as concept and mind maps are common activities in the classroom, especially when going through the Tuning In phase of an inquiry unit. Students could use this program to create an easy-to-read presenatation of the concepts in question.



I created my own concept map based on the topic of becomning a teacher. As you can see, this is my super duper concept map.

And down here is my wicked mind map which I also created using Inspriation which was just as easy, and used the same icons as the concept maps design icons.










My mind map is based upon the topic of weather/ seasons. As you can see, the concepts branch off into sub-catergories. This would be a great design to use when brainstorming a concept such as Indigenous Australians as categories can branch off into various smaller concepts such as Music, Dreamtime, Hunting/Gathering, Tribes/ Dialects etc.

Well clearly I have areas for improvement, but I think so far I am doing a great job of using these programs.
I really had no idea this Inspiration program even existed and am really happy to have discovered it now... Thanks Greg!! I believe this program will benefit students in a range of subject areas and ehance their skills and knowlege in all these learning areas, whilst at the same time, students can grasp better techniques to use ICT.