WEEK 5 ANIMATION IN PRIMARY SCHOOL

This week’s lecture looked at a whole range of animation websites.   These animations were fun to watch and I quite enjoyed the lecture. However I  think some of the animation website  take up too much time in the class room and a student might run the risk on not really learning much from these if this is not coordinated correctly by the teacher.   There seems to be a lot of emphasis here placed on developing visual education through the topic of animations. This is great considering that most schools tend to be reliant on print based classrooms.

In the work shop we were pretty much zooming through a whole lot of websites.  By the end few followed what was happening and went on to do their own thing, by playing wit certain sites they liked. The idea here was to show us a whole range sites on the net which we can use in our classes. We started the workshop by looking at the following sites

Dvolver

Devolver  (or Dfilm) is a site that helps you create short movies.  This website might not be suitable for children as the characters and scenarios can be a bit provocative. However it was done just for fun.

<<object type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowScriptAccess="never" allowNetworking="internal" height="285" width="381" align="middle" data="http://s3.amazonaws.com/dv_assets/plot_template_lang3.swf?movie_id=448188"><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="never" /><param name="allowNetworking" value="internal" /><param name="wmode" value="transparent" /><param name="movie" value="http://s3.amazonaws.com/dv_assets/plot_template_lang3.swf?movie_id=448188" /><param name="quality" value="high" /></object>
 >

Build Your Wild Self

The next task involved   making a picture of ourselves. http://www.buildyourwildself.com/

This is a good site for children to develop their  own characters . Once you’re done the site will provide a break down of all the wild characteristics about you and what they are used for. For example my wild butterfly had polar bear ears because it gets cold in the arctic and that why they are covered in fur.

Zimmer Twins

htttp://www.zimmertwins.com/movie/create

The Zimmer twins also allow you develop your own movie using the twin’s characters in the movie clips. It gives you various action movements, talk bubles and  clips. This is great for kids because it can allow them to build up scenarios for example about bullying. In my case I made the movie where the cat talks to one of the twins but the other twin does not believe him and ridicules him.

Reasonably clever

This is another site that lets you create your own character from the “Mini Mizer” tabs.  Your character can have a variety of hair, facial, body variation. Have a look at my little minimize figure below. Cute isn’t she? 

Sketch Swap

http://www.sketchswap.com/

This is very addictive site that lets you create a drawing (using your mouse) and you submit in exchange for a random sketch that is a reply to your sketch. However I personally will not use this site in my classroom as you have no control over it as a teacher and you don’t know what you might get back. It could be inappropriate material for you children. It is important to keep in the back of minds that their might be some hidden dangers associated with some of these site like this one.

Sumdog

http://www.sumdog.com/

This interactive website features a collection of math games to improve numeracy for a variety of topics.   This is a great way of engaging children in Mathematics.  After a brief introduction to a topic in Math, have students start playing a game. The competitive nature of these games keeps students interested throughout.  Sumdog is ideal  to use for unsupervised work at home.  I chose to play the game street racer where you have to select which number is larger or smaller really quickly. Getting the right answer makes the car move faster. While this particular game had limited value in use it does improve the reaction time of the child and you can choose various levels.

Zip Tales

http://www.ziptales.com.au/

Ziptales for children who are reading very well . it has hundreds of books  beutifullly illustrated and  after reading a book it sets kids tests. You can read a story to kids

Then the heading of that story they have to write a paragraph story. Then they have to move from their desk and swap with another student and continue  their story with another paragraph. This is a fun way to get kids to write quickly. This is agreat site as it will encourage reluctant writers to write .

Childrens stories are then professionally illustrated and sent to them. Even though this site has been set up for the good readers and writers you can still use it to catch reluctant writers in class, especially with young boys.

We couldn’t play around as we had prescribe online but greg showed us examples.

http://www.sumdog.com/
here are various games you can play

the following is the game i chose. street race. talk about mathematics benefit. fast

http://www.sketchswap.com/

return photo

http://www.reasonablyclever.com/

htttp://www.zimmertwins.com/movie/create

http://www.buildyourwildself.com/

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(above is movie maker)

week 4 educational programs in the schools

       This weeks lecture by Greg looked at the digital revolution and  how it has provided opportunities in education  to improve learning outcomes  and equip students with new skills and knowledge.  Greg  introduced us to the  http://www.thelearningfederation.edu.au/ site and  went though the resources available to teachers within this website.  This web site had many interactive  types of games available on it and is very helpful for teacher planning.  Greg introduced us to a sample of the learning material present on the following site.

It was pretty impressive to see the amount of resources available for teachers.  This  site included a substantial  body of learning  objects in  curriculum priority areas,  which have been designed specifically with a pedagogical purpose in mind. For example one of the major learning objects  in the learning federation site is environmental  education for sustainability.   Greg introduced us to this  by looking at a wind farm situation. Here the issue was discussing wind power and a teacher could get the students to  target individual opinions and do a pro/cons list.  The teacher could then get the children to discuss this further  and have a debate in groups. This game is very interactive that it even has a note book to allow students to build up their data.   

         

These games are varied and the learning objects include; English and literacy, early years, civic and citizenships, mathematics, science, environment education for sustainability, history, arts and design , etc. it is important to remember that you need to give children time  to work through some of these games. As I teacher I will definitely be using this site as part of my resources. 

   The workshop for that week began by looking at http://www.abc.net.au/dustechoes/ website.  The Dust Echoes site  has a series of beautifully animated dream time stories which look at the ideas of Love, Loyalty,  duty to country and aboriginal custom and law.  This is a great place for teachers to start  if teaching about aboriginal history.  The  aim of this week workshop was to retell one of these animated stories using  a concept map in inspiration.  These stories provide  learning in the areas of society and the environment. The retelling of the story in a concept map  allows students to understand and respond to the ideas in aboriginal dreaming stories and extract specific information when listening to them. For example in the story I chose to select “ The Magic Spear” , a teacher can have a discussion about the aspects of  tradition in aboriginal justice,  by looking at the theme where they speared the guy in his thighs.  You can also use this as a kick off point in a unit of work  with regard to culture, art and symbolism. For me when retelling the story I was able to use the summary provided on the site  (due to time constraint) pick out the main themes and put in the retelling of my story. It is important to note that some of these stories  might not be very clear to students, so a teacher might want to quickly go through with the students about what is happening, or get kids to have a look at the summary and put in their own words.

  The second task in the workshop involved creating  a spread sheet with Graphs for  M &Ms  by using Ms Excel design.  The aim  for us was to sort the M&Ms  into their respective colours (without eating them) and then enter their data into the  M & M spread sheet. When that was done  we creatively designed a  graph from the data. Each person designed their graph  differently . I added a Cartoon M &M in the back ground and changed the colour of the columns to reflect their names.  This was a lot of fun and in a classroom  environment the teacher could enter the whole classroom data onto one spread sheet and  then  discuss questions relating  the overall data. In a mathematical  terms students can investigate  what colours were found to occur most and develop this into  a chance and data activities. This activity was fun and simple and can easily be applied in any classroom with computers, and it sure beats that old fashion way of plain graphs on papers.

week 3 workshop : Cyber bullying and QUIA

This weeks lecture brought to my attention a very important issue, which is now widespread in schools, cyber bullying. Cyber bullying is not some insignificant problem experienced by a few. Cyber bullying is widespread and while students are aware of it, they are unconcerned with the consequences. What surprised me the most was the extent of the various digital abuse present (emails, chat rooms, discussion groups, instant messaging, video and web pages). I believe it is important that we as teachers educate students on the risks involved with online communities just as a normal community.


We need to teach students to behave responsibly and act safely online not just for themselves but others. I definitely agree with Greg about the need to run sessions with children about safety online, by introducing them to educational websites like cyber smart(http://www.cybersmart.gov.au/). Websites like cybersmart provide activities, resource and practicle advice to help young kids; teens and parents enjoy the online world safely. At the same time it provides training and resources for schools and educators in battling cyber bullying. In the lecture, we were also able to view a real life experience of a student who was a victim of cyber bullying as a result of divulging personal information to her friend. As teachers we should always be mindful to educate our students of the need to protect their privacy and that of others.

This week’s workshop activity looked at investigating a design to make a frog jump using all the materials given. It was engaging and in a classroom situation you would get the kids to demonstrate how they got their frogs to jump. This activity also introduces children to a certain procedural work where they need to investigate, design, produce and evaluate. When we shared in the classroom, how each team got their frog to jump, we discovered about 8ways of making the frog to jump. When you fold the card board it extends the energy which is what you can try to get children to think about. Children in the classroom would then design a poster explaining all the stages they went through in order to get the making of the jumping frog. This particular exercise could be very much like a science unit. By getting children to apply the ID/P/AE process, which stands for investigate, design, produce, analyse and evaluate, as teacher we are encouraging a higher level of thinking in our students. This is a great way to share ideas and teach students analytical and problem solving skills.

I found this workshop to be quite enjoyable as we had a chance to work in groups and share ideas. I can easily see how this can be applied in my own classroom where I can get young students to actively work together. The work shop also introduced us the QUIA games website www.quia.com/web which allow students to create their own games and quizzes and WebPages. It also allows students to share the activities with anyone they want. Students can go home and get their parents to try their activities. This program was very engaging and easy to use. I have attached two samples of the quiz activities which I created using the Qui program, one is the hangman and the second one is jumbled words (enjoy).

http://www.quia.com/jw/388948.html  jumbled words
http://www.quia.com/hm/671344.html hangman

WEEK 2 – e-Portfolio and Creating a Brochure

WEEK 2 – e-Portfolio and Creating a Brochure

This week we looked at building a brochure using Ms Publisher. The lecture was quite engaging and visual.  The creation of presentation materials for publication is made much simpler through the use of MS Publisher. This program can be used effectively in classrooms, as it can allow you to create flyers, booklets, pamphlets (which we produced in the workshop), posters and variety other publication materials.  For example students   can use it to do a procedural text for how does a torch work. In English we can apply the brochure format and get students to do one about them at the beginning of the year.    Ms Publisher has a library of preformatted backdrops that anyone can use. One example would be what I used as the template for my e-Portfolio. This program is a lot of fun and provides user with more freedom for editing, transferring and placement of objects within a single document. It is however important to keep in the back of our mind that we must utilise and manage time effectively with this program. For example we need to be specific about what we want from children and only provide them with certain websites they can work from.

This week we also learned how to create an e-Portfolio, which wasn’t that complex in setting up, but was time consuming when trying to make visually appealing.  The lecturer put into context the benefits of an e-Portfolio and how it might be the final factor into impressing a panel when been shortlisted.  While setting up the visual side of things wasn’t complex deciding what to put into your e-portfolio could make all the difference.  I find the idea of having a portfolio for each child very helpful because it provides parents and teachers with an overview of each child’s learning and progress.

WEEK 1 Introduction to Inspiration & the Development of a BLOG

   Graphic  design  organiser have been used in primary schools to help students rather than the traditional copy from a book.  Today we looked at   one of those graphic organisers "Inspiration" software  and developed a concept map.    The whole idea  was to help children to learn how to learn to link concepts.  We had   time to play around  and learn how to use the system. This will also be important to apply in the classroom to allow children  to have a play time and learn how to use inspiration.

   For me  this was a system I needed some time to get to use.  Inspiration  allows children to develop a concept map and thus  learn to create  a mind map.  It can be very versatile  with  the various  graphics. For example, under every  graph  there is  a text  blog  where children can write  material into this.  It is better in this case to type into the note function  rather than the comment  getting bigger  and bigger.  What  this is trying to do is not only get children  be stimulated by the  environment  but learn to make  connections  between  the story and  for example what the moral issues of the story are. You could do this in an English class for example where students learn to recognise relationship between characters and objects.  An aspect of this program is called transfer . It places  everything  a child  made  into one document.  It lists all the typing you put into it. This way kids can take their work away.  This program is good for family history, life cycles etc. we can set tasks for children about  famous structures  and they will need to find out more about them. In prep for example they might be able to  bring pictures in  of themselves  and do a family tree.   

   Running a mind  map allows you to put in a central idea  and  will link various ideas into the branches and discuss them.  It allows you to arrange work around a  central key point and encourage new ways of thinking. At this stage I am unclear of what is expected of me in this subject and I am  a bit anxious as a mature age student.  However, I did find inspiration and mind mapping to be engaging programs and can see myself applying it in my future classroom. I found adding hyperlinks and using the note functions very useful  as it allowed information to  be organised easily