Week 5 : Creating Digital Films Online & Animation in the Classroom

This week’s workshop we discovered and explored the wonderful world of digital films online. There are wealth of ICT websites which  enable teachers to incorporate into the classroom.  I will run through the websites covered in our Workshop and lecture this week, illustrating my examples and their uses in Primary Education.

As  an introduction to digital film online, we explored Devolver movie maker, formally dfilm,(http://www.dfilm.com/live/home.html). This website allows you to create your own movie! This enables you to sequence scenes and create dialogue to create a movie. It must be emphasised that this is NOT suitable for primary school aged children, nonetheless a great introduction into digital film making for adults to enjoy.

To see the whole movie, click here:

http://www.dvolver.com/live/movies-450454 

Build your wild self (http://www.buildyourwildself.com/) is a website which allows students to create a wild character using different human parts and then able to choose animal parts to create a wild self character. Check out my example below: 

 A fun and creative way to allow students to create a nonsense character using an array of diverse characteristics. Great as an English exercise where children can create a story about their created character.

Zimmer Twins (http://www.zimmertwins.com/) is a fantastic website that allows you to make your own cartoon from scratch. It is a fun and creative way for teachers to incorporate technology into the classroom. Particularly useful in teaching English and for students who have English as there second language as it helps expand their vocabulary and enables them to develop good writing practices. It is certainly a  fun and positive environment where children can safely explore and exercise their creativity with fun tools that allow them to make their own short cartoons. I have included a stroyboard below to illustrate my attempt creating an animated film using this program:

 

Rollermache: (http://www.abc.net.au/rollercoaster/rollermache/about.htm) is an amazing online website dedicated to animation, the website promotes digital literacy and  media production in a safe creative online environment. What I particularly like about this website is that it was created especially for students in rural areas as a means to create their own content. It caters for all students in all areas; it's a safe, free and accessible to school and home computers.

Reasonably Clever (http://www.reasonablyclever.com/) is a website that allows the creation of characters using online Lego! A fantastic, interactive way for kids to create their own Lego character. We used the 'Classic Kid-Safe Mini-Mizer' link, which ensured that the creations would be safe and appropriate for primary classrooms.

My Lego rock star character.

Sketch Swap (http://www.sketchswap.com/) is a web page that allows you to sketch a picture, and when you press 'submit' you receive a sketch from someone else. What a fun and addictive idea, I must say that I had a few goes at this one. Your own sketches may be used and received by others. My original sketch is below:

Following the submission of this sketch, it was swapped with this picture below:

Ziptales (http://www.ziptales.com.au/)

Ziptales is a brilliant online literacy program, which enables students to read and work through an array of online stories, aimed at comprehension and the development of language skills.  There is a wealth of resources to be used in conjunction with the stories. For each story there are cloze passages, sequencing, multiple choice questions, rhyming and short writing exercises based on the illustrations. This is an interactive and stimulating way for inclusion of all students to enhance literacy engagement and learning.  

Xtranormal, Text-to- Movie (http://www.xtranormal.com/)
Xtranormal enables anyone to make a movie!  It is fast becoming a powerful communication tool of the 21st century. I have included my movie below (I uploaded it on YouTube as well).
This program would be brilliant for integration into the classroom allowing children to create their own movies a means of communicating work through the use of technology.

Games are also in abundance on the web search engine, all rich as tools in their ability to promote powerful learning in the classroom. These games were explored in our Workshop:
Sumdog (http://www.sumdog.com/) - Online maths games to improve numeracy. Here is one that we explored in the lecture: Street Racer:

Play this game http://www.sumdog.com/games/flow.action?game=racing

Stop Disasters (http://www.stopdisastersgame.org/en/home.html) - A brilliant simulation game which enables students to become aware of natural disasters by  teaching children how to build safer villages and cities against disasters. Children will learn playing how the location and the construction materials of houses can make a difference when disasters strike and how early warning systems, evacuation plans and education can save lives (http://www.stopdisastersgame.org/en/home.html). 

This game would be fantastic as an integrated tool in the Humanities/Science Curriculum.

'Tsunami' - Play this game
http://www.stopdisastersgame.org/en/playgame.html




There are so many more games/animation and digital movie making websites suited for integration into the classroom for primary education. We have barely touched the surface.

Photo Story 3 (http://www.windowsphotostory.com/)

I had a lot of fun with this program. Creating your own photo stories! I have included my photo story using my beautiful cats as the starts of the show. You would be able to integrate this program in any of the learning domains, it would be fantastic to use following an excursion; uploading photos taken on what students saw and adding text to tell the story of their experience or as a results record following a science experiment or students could develop a photo story based on a holiday, celebration or special event. The opportunities to incorporate this into the classroom are endless.
Check out my photo story below starring my cats!

Throughout this unit I have been amazed, inspired, engaged, captivated and overwhelmed. It has challenged me and I have come out the other end truly inspired.  Most of all I have enjoyed the wealth of ICT based resources that are available for aspiring teachers to integrate into their classrooms. I am reminded that if I, as an adult, have been enthralled by this exploration, I can only image how powerful it will be in the classroom for primary aged children. I am certainly looking forward to finding out.

Week 4 - Learning Federation Learning Objects (LO) & Inspiration Task

I continue to get blown away by the amount of ICT resources that are available for teachers to integrate into their classrooms! This week’s lecture was a brief introduction to the Learning Federation website (http://www.thelearningfederation.edu.au/default.asp). It is an amazing resource for teachers to integrate technology in their classrooms. The website contains a wealth of resources; interactive multimedia, interactive assessment, collections of digital curriculum resources and an array of teaching ideas in which highlight how teachers can integrate ICT resources into their learning programs. The digital curriculum resources are carefully designed which cater for the needs of all students which address priority curriculum areas such as literacy and numeracy , science, environmental studies, Australian history, LOTE, Business and Indigenous studies (Warning: Digital content on this page may contain references to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who may have passed away). Have a look at some examples of these below:

Dice Duels Bike Race

This game allows Students explore even and uneven distribution and bias  using interactive tools in a range of dice-based tutorials, activities and games (MATHS)

http://www.thelearningfederation.edu.au/for_teachers/sample_learning_materials/tm_-_maths.html?showcaseObjectID=2204

Radical Hunt – Island Hunt

This game enables students to go on a treasure hunt by discovering the related meaning to each set of Kunji (Japanese) (LOTE)

http://www.thelearningfederation.edu.au/for_teachers/sample_curriculum_content/tm_-_languages.html

In the Workshop we were given the opportunity to experience integrating technology in learning curriculums of literacy and numeracy.We viewed an animated dreamtime story from Dust Echoes which is a series of twelve animated dreamtime story from Central Arnhem Land in Northern Australia (http://www.abc.net.au/dustechoes/dustEchoesFlash.htm) (Warning: Digital content on this page may contain references to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who may have passed away). We then used the Inspiration program (as introduced in week one) via story mapping, as a means to re-tell the story by cutting and pasting images from the story (I have included my example below). I can see how this enables students to understand concepts, processes and further develop their skills and knowledge in a much more interactive way .

Microsoft excel (http://office.microsoft.com/en-au/), was also explored as a tool for teaching mathematics. Initially we counted the amount of colours in an m&ms packet and recorded it on a tally chart manually, using the following:

We then transferred the data using MS Excel to create a graph using this program (see my attempts below). I found this a much more powerful way to conceptualise and engage in an activity as opposed to just using a maunual tally or via completing a worksheet. I have come to understand that learning objects via a digital means is not replacing concepts that are taught in a learning environment through hands on experiences, but rather as an integrated method into these curriculums to enhance the learning experience of students.



First attempt



Second attempt



What is becoming evident throughout this unit is that the use of technology in the classroom is not only a useful, engaging and an interactive tool, but an essential one. We are now in a world where children are born into technology and depriving them of this in the classroom in the 21^st Century, we are robbing their readiness for the outside world.  If we teach the way we were taught we will undoubtedly contribute to student’s unwillingness and dislike towards learning. This is one of my favourite clips from the movie Ferris Bueller’s Day off, which shows the traditional way in which I was taught many years ago – What not to do!

Uloaded from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-S54bbX6eA

In contrast here are some inspirational clips that demonstrate the 21^st Century Learner – The Digital Learner:

Uploaded from  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2j9qw-A0NM

Uploaded from  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l72UFXqa8ZU