WEEK 5: Animation, Cartoons and Creativity!

Animation in the Classroom

Imagine telling your students that they were going to create their very own animation, from scratch. It sounds daunting, especially when you look at the animations in the movies or TV programs. However we learned in today's lecture that we, as teachers, can help our students create some really fantastic short animated films.

Claymation is one type of animation that a teacher could easily introduce to their students. Think Wallace and Grommet or Harvey Crumpet. These types of animations are made by creating a character out of clay or play dough and taking a series of still photos. These photos,when shown in sequence, make a short film. Below is a claymation of Mario! There are LOTS of examples on YouTube of animations that have been made by other students and the public that you can show your students to initially engage them and inspire them! Alternatively you, as the teacher, can make one yourself to show them whats possible!

I can't help but think about my placement class and how much they would have enjoyed a project where they made an actual animated movie. They were such a creative bunch of children and would have loved making something so special! Such a project requires problem solving, critical thinking, planning, designing and creativity: It would be an incredibly rich task to complete. Such a project could even be responsible for igniting a child's curiosity in a career in animation.

Workshop Activities and Classroom Applications

Today Greg introduced us to animation. He told us that animation and claymation projects are great ways to creatively integrate ICT into lessons. During the workshop we explored a variety of websites that allow students to create their own animations and characters. I have discussed each below:

Devolver

The website http://www.dfilm.com/live/moviemaker.html is a fantastic resource for making short animations. It is not suitable for primary school aged students because of some of the content however it could be used in a high school classroom or by the teacher themselves to demonstrate how students can make their own animations. Alternatively the teacher could use this program on the interactive whiteboard (filtering the content) to create a class animation based on the suggestions of the students.

Build Your Wild Self

Secondly we explored a website called http://www.buildyourwildself.com/. It is a great website that allows students to create their own wild self by choose from various animal features. They add these features to their bodies and can name their wild self. the characters they make can be used in various ways.

I actually used this website during my placement as an introductory activity for students. We read the book 'Where the Wild Things Are' and I did an art activity which required them to make themselves into Wild Things. This website was a great way to get them thinking about the features they might include on their own wild thing. They loved it so much that I let them play on the website once they had completed their work. We printed each students finished 'Wild Self' and collated them into a class book. These characters then formed the bases of a creative writing activity on visual literacy whereby the character they had created was the catalyst for their stories.

Zimmer Twins

Thirdly we looked at the site http://www.zimmertwins.com/ which is an ABC program that is similar to DVOLVER but allows the user to be more creative with story they create because there is a huge variety of actions available for your character to perform. This program is more appropriate for primary school children than DVOLVER because of its child friendly content.

Sketch Swap

Next we looked at http://www.sketchswap.com/p.com/. On this site you draw a picture and can swap it with someone else from anywhere in the world. while this site is lots of fun you cannot monitor what sketch you receive back. Students could Draw cartoons, art, brainstorms, anything. Here is a sketch I received by swapping my picture:

Reasonably Clever

We also looked at http://www.reasonablyclever.com/. This site allows you to build lego characters using the lego feature pictures on the site.Click on the 'classic kids safe minimizer' option on the tool bar to navigate to this activity. Its fantastic for creating characters that can be used in other creative projects.

Ode to a Spell Checker

Next we did an activity called 'ode to a spell checker'. Greg got us to open a word document and turn off our computer monitors. He then read us a poem and asked us to type what we heard. Once we had finished we were told to turn on the monitors to check our work, however the sentences Greg read back to us was full of homophones.

This is what I wrote:

This is the actual 'Ode' that was read to us:

Roller Mache

Next we investigated the site http://www.abc.net.au/rollercoaster/rollermache/ which has various videos that explain the animation process, step by step. this would be a great website to visit to introduce your students to the animation process before they attempt to make their own.

Ziptails

Lastly we looked at http://www.ziptails.com.au/. If your school subscribes to this you can use it to select a story, select a title only to make up a story. Ask students to get up and move seats then continue on with this new story, each new paragraph is highlighted a different colour so that they can say where each new person has added to their original story. Great activity for creative writing, spelling and grammar that is engaging and fun.

WEEK 4: Critical Thinking, Dust Echoes and Candy Graphs!

Encouraging our Students to Think Critically

In today’s lecture Greg spoke about the importance of helping our students develop critical thinking skills. He defined critical thinking as the ability to think clearly and rationally. It includes the ability to engage in reflective and independent thinking.

Critical thinking promotes creativity, is crucial for self-reflection and can develop problem solving skills in students. As teachers it is important that we promote the development of critical thinking skills in our students through engaging and authentic inquiry tasks and units. We can facilitate critical thinking and reflection in our students by making sure we construct engaging questions for them to investigate and making students aware of their own assumptions. It is also important that we encourage them to constantly reflect and analyse their investigations .

Critical thinking can also be responsible for enhancing students language and presentation skills because thinking clearly and systematically can improve the way we express our ideas. Mind mapping ICT programs like Inspiration are fantastic tools for getting students to express their ideas and to illustrate their comprehension of concepts . Some other useful site that promote the use of concept mapping for critical thinking include:

• Concept Draw (http://www.conceptdraw.com/en/products/mindmap/ap-visualthinking.php )
• IMindMap (http://www.imindmap.com/)
• Mind Manager (http://www.mindjet.com/us/)

Workshop Activities and Classroom Applications

Today Greg introduced us to an ABC website called Dust Echoes: www.abc.net.au/dustechoes/ . Dust Echoes contains a series of 12 animated dreamtime stories from central Arnhem Land. The animations are great for exploring the aboriginal culture and could be incorporated into the civics and citizenship domain at level 4 which states that students “explain the concept of multiculturalism and describe the contribution of various cultural groups, including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, to Australian identity.” The site also has some great study guides and suggested activities for students and teachers.

During today’s workshop we watched one of the animations and used inspiration to create a mind map/story board of the main themes and events represented in the film.

Using the print screen function and paint program I was able to create some still pictures of the film. I used inspiration to arrange these pictures into a mind map.

This activity could be repeated for any animation or film the students view on the internet. Taking the still frames and arranging them into a concept map allows the students to reflect on the subject material more deeply. This process would also be great for story boarding or recount activities. The second activity we did today had a math’s focus. We brought in packets of M&Ms and grouped the chocolates into colours. We used a piece of paper to make a simple graphical representation of our M&Ms.Once we had collected and recorded our data we used Excel to graph the chocolates by colour.

The M&M website can be used to complement this activity (http://www.mms.com/us/about/characters/). We were able to get some pictures of the M&M characters to complement our graphs in the same way we used paint to obtain some pictures from the print screen function.

This activity is an engaging one because it has students graphing and charting using a medium that they are familiar with (and enjoy!). It is a good idea to keep in mind that When doing a graphing activity like this one with students, it is Important to ask the right questions when analyzing the data. How many were in your box? How many of each colour was in your box? What colour appeared the most/least? Ect. It is from the answers to these questions that some fantastic chance and data activities can be developed. The website is also a surprisingly good resource because it can be used by students to investigate real work issue like healthy eating.

As teachers however we need to be wary of food allergies when doing such an activity. It is also problematic to do an activity with chocolate in schools that may have specific guidelines in place about what the students can and cannot eat while in class. Other school communities may frown upon the distribution (and assumed promotion) of junk foods. While lollies can be a great way to engage children in chance, data and graphing activities, it is best to check with the principal of your school first to make sure that doing such an activity is appropriate. If it isn’t, you can just as easily use confetti or other coloured objects instead of chocolates.

WEEK 3: Safety Online, Design Briefs and Quia

The Protection of Students Online

In the Week 3 lecture we spoke about our responsibility as teachers to protect our students while they are online. We must be aware of what our students are exposed to while on the internet because unfortunately, there are many risks associated with working online. Schools and teachers need to minimize these risks with positive strategies that teach our students to behave responsibly and act safely when using ICT.

Some of the major risks to students when working online include:

• Exposure to unsuitable or harmful material
• Commercialism (online add pop ups) of the Internet and financial risks
• Cyber Bullying and harassment
• Privacy of Student Identity
• Spam and Viruses
  

To minimize risks to students and teachers schools need to actively develop an Internet Acceptable Use Agreements (AUAs). These are agreed Codes of Practice for students, teachers and parents to follow. The following link is shows an example of an existing AUAs at Bayswater PS: http://www.bayswaterps.vic.edu.au/students/internet.htm

The Department of Education and Early Childhood Development realise that these risks are very real but also realise that ICT and web based technologies should not be side stepped in a school curriculum because of them. They have developed a site that that aims to educate teachers and school communities about cyber safety. Cybersafety refers to the ways students keep both themselves and their friend’s safe on the internet. Cybersafety and ethics need to be explicitly taught as part of the school curriculum.

For further information visit their website at: http://www.education.vic.gov.au/management/elearningsupportservices/www/educate/cybersafety.htm

As part of this initiative the DEECD have developed the Cybersmart program. This program is a national Cybersafety education program managed by the Australian Communications and Media Authority, as part of the Australian Government’s commitment to promoting online safety for children and young people. The Cybersmart program includes information, activities, resources and advice for children, young people and parents to help them safely work online, as well as offering training and resources for schools and materials for library staff.

For more information visit: http://www.cybersmart.gov.au/

Greg also provided us with a variety of links to useful websites that can be used in schools to promote safety online:

• Netty’s World: http://www.nettysworld.com.au/ (Primary)
• CyberNetrix: http://www.cybernetrix.com.au/ (Secondary)
• Wise Up To It: http://www.wiseuptoit.com.au/
• CyberQuoll: http://www.cyberquoll.com.au/hub.htm (Primary)
• BBC Web Wise: http://www.bbc.co.uk/webwise/
• CyberKidz: http://www.cyberkidz.co.nz/CYBERKIDZ/safetypoints/safetyp1.html
• Cyber Smart Curriculum (K-Yr 8): http://www.cybersmartcurriculum.org/home/
• Grid Club: http://www.gridclub.com.au/
• Wired Kids: http://www.wiredkids.org/
• Keep Safe: http://www.ikeepsafe.org/
• Web Wise Kids: http://www.webwisekids.org/
• Get Net Wise: http://www.getnetwise.org/
• Dealing with eCrime: http://www.afp.gov.au/national/e-crime.html

Workshop Activities and Classroom Applications

We began today's workshop by discussing the technology design process. This process is relevant to the Design and Technology curriculum. To illustrate a practical design process we were given a design brief that involved us investigating the problem:

How do we make our frog jump?

Using a rubber band, a piece of cardboard, a paper frog and a glue stick only we were required to design a product that would help our frog to 'jump'. To assist in the design process we needed to fill out a design brief:

Our finished product was not the most effective 'jumper, but experimenting with the materials and inventing a product was incredibly engaging. It was also great to hear what other groups had done and how they had justified their designs. Allowing students time to share their learning is an important part of the lesson. It can provide insight into their understanding (formative assessment) and also allows students to learn from each other.

Below you will see a video of our product "jumping" and a close up photograph of our final design:

Greg told us during the workshop that is valuable for students to be trained in the process of design. Working through a design brief, step by step is a great way to encourage problem solving and higher order thinking in students. This process gives the students the freedom to form their own ideas, to collaborate with each other and to share their learning.

During today's tutorial we also investigated a website that enables people to create their own games, quizzes and activities.

http://www.quia.com/web is a fantastic resource that can be used by Teachers to create learning activities for their students or by the students themselves ans a way off applying their learning in an interactive and fun way. Once each game/quiz has been developed the site provides the instructor with a URL that can be used by anyone all over the world to access their and complete their activity. There is also a shared activity page that enables you to access the activities developed by other people around the world! Some of these activities are pictured below:

During this weeks workshop I created two activities (one quiz and one hangman game) using the Quia website.It was incredibly easy to use and I signed up for a 30 day trial so that I could continue using the website. Students and teachers could also sign up for the trial but after the four weeks you would have to purchase the product to continue accessing the activities.

WEEK 2: E- Portfolios and Microsoft Publisher

E-Portfolios for Teachers and Students

In today's lecture Greg introduced us to e-portfolios. He defined them as:

“A digital or electronic portfolio is a collection of work or a display of artifacts that demonstrates one’s skill level, progress and achievements in one or more areas of discipline over time. It is arranged so that they and others can see how their skills have developed and progressed. The collection must include contents, the criteria for selecting and judging content and evidence of reflection. As new work is completed the portfolio is updated.”

E-portfolios can be created by both teachers an students. Student e-portfolios hold examples of students work which allows users to reflect on their learning and experiences over a given period . To be effective assessment tools e-portfolios should contain student works from the beginning, middle and end of the year to show a progression in learning. Importantly, e portfolios allow teachers to make further improvements that will benefit future student learning.

To be purposeful an e-portfolio should:

• feature multiple examples of work be context rich
• offer opportunities for self-assessment and reflection
• offer a look at development over time.

A teaching professional can utilise and e-portfolio to showcase their professional development, pedagogy, classroom experiences and achievements when applying for teaching jobs. They are also a fantastic way to show potential employers that you know a thing or two about ICT!

Workshop Activities and Classroom Applications

Today we began the workshop by looking at some examples of power point based e-portfolios that had been developed by previous Primary Education students.

A good e-portfolio should contain most, if not all of the following pages:

• Introduction
• Resume
• Philosophy of Teaching
• Awards and Achievements
• Reflection and Discussion Entries
• Application of Theories to Classroom Experiences
• Referees
• Teaching References
• Contact Information
  

Greg spoke to us about the value of developing an e-portfolio to accompany the interview stage of job applications. These portfolios provide insight into a teachers' individual talents and pedagogy.

Teacher e-portfolios are concise, annotated collections of teacher work and things they have accomplished, in and outside the classroom. What makes them very different from traditional portfolios is that they can include scanned or digital photos, video and sound clips, animations, recordings of students, text, traditional writings and drawings. Teacher portfolios are a collection of work produced by a teacher. The portfolio is designed to highlight and demonstrate the teachers' talents, knowledge and skills in teaching.

While looking into developing my own e-portfolio I came across this you-tube clip that illustrates how e-portfolios are becoming more and more popular all over the world. Their popularity can be attributed to their capacity to showcase a person’s abilities and developments in an accessible, professional and reflective manner.

In our workshop, Greg taught us how to utilize the Microsoft programs Power Point and Publisher to develop an e-portfolio. In Power Point this can be done by essentially creating a slide show with each slide corresponding to pages mentioned above. Alternatively, Microsoft Publisher can be used to develop a website based portfolio.

I attempted to create a website using publisher as the basis of my own professional portfolio; the tabs at the side of the template correspond with the pages mentioned above:

While I have decided to use the website templte to develop an e portfolio, it could also be used by students to develop a a class website or as an alternative to the traditional poster making projects for students.

Microsoft Publisher is also a fantastic program for developing brochures and other publications. The Publisher website ( http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/publisher/) has lots of free tutorials and information on different projects and activities that the program can be used for.

Some classroom applications could include:

• Making a class newspaper
• Newsletters and flyers
• Creating advertisement
• Brochures
• Web sites

I created a brochure on a holiday destination using publisher. It was quite straight forward and looks quite professional. I think the professional look is something students appreciate because the publication they have created is authentic looking, not amateurish.

WEEK 1: Learning Technologies in the 21st Century

ICT and 21st Century Education

Being able to use and learning technologies is a necessary skill for the 21^st century. They can help us and our students to develop higher order thinking and problem solving skills, improve motivation, attitudes and arouse an interest in learning. Considering that we are in an Information Age, such skills regarding the use of ICT are practical and increasingly essential to our successes in the modern workforce.

It is our job as teachers to prepare our students, as best we can, for the future. we need to encourage our student's to use technology including computers, cameras and other devices on a daily basis within schools by providing them with the opportunity to participate in real, authentic tasks that are challenging and meaningful.

Integrating learning technologies into the classroom can help:

• Develop higher order thinking and problem solving skills
• Improve student motivation, attitude, and interest in learning
• Address the needs of low performing, at-risk, and learning disabled students
• prepare students for the workforce
• Develop necessary skill for an Information Age (21st Century)

In many cases when using ICT the learner is fully engaged in the learning process and are given the opportunity to learn in radically different ways to tradition classroom textbooks and blackboards.

Workshop Activities and Classroom Applications

Today’s workshop was dedicated to investigating Inspiration 8 IE, a piece of educational computer software that allows users to build various graphic organizers. After a brief tutorial on the features of the program I was encouraged to explore and experiment with its user friendly interface. After only a short while I was able to successfully create both a simple mind map and a concept map complete with graphics, links, labels and text boxes.

I created this mind-map by using both the graphics library within the program and importing images from the Internet. This mind map centers around the topic "people who help us in our community":

This concept map was also very simple to create. The programs start up menu has a variety of mapping options to choose from. The concept mapping option is valuable for exploring subjects in more depth. The one I created is centered on "Living Things":

This program is a valuable visual learning tool that inspires students to develop and organize their ideas. It supports a variety of visual thinking techniques including concept mapping, mind mapping and web development. Students could use this software to brainstorm, plan, organize, think about, outline and present various concepts across a variety of curriculum areas.

I had a look at the Inspiration website: http://www.inspiration.com. The 'EDUCATORS' page of the site outlines how to "Use Examples and Lesson Plans to Integrate Inspiration into Your Curriculum". The site also offers people a free thirty day trial of the software. I hope to utilize this trail at some point during my second practicum.

Some specific of how Inspiration 8IE could be used in an educational context include:

• Assist students in organizing information
• Defining new terms
• Introducing a new concept
• Note-taking organizer
• Showing relationships
• Comparison activities
• Present difficult material in a step by step manner
• Illustrating Cycles and systems
• Civic and Citizenship - illustrate a Local government diagram
• History - identify Historical cause and effect
• Language Arts - character descriptions, plot movement, storyboards
• Math-to teach algorithms (especially division)

More teacher specific applications might include:

• Assisting teachers in planning lessons/units/themes
• Showing the integration of different topics across the curriculum
• Assist cooperative groups in defining projects and dividing jobs