Raff's rant

thinking that my first activity with my year 9 IT elective class will be around IT has it has changed over time and its impact on society, with a focus on students using mobile phones!

student task:

Using your mobile phones work in pairs to complete the following:

Take 10 pictures to show how information technology (IT) has changed over time

Take 15 pictures to show how IT has made life easier

Record 6 quotes from others about the importance of IT in todays society (you need to personally record the comments on your phone)

3 text messages from people outside the school about the significance IT has had in creating changed in our society.

You are going to upload all the comments/photos/messages to a voice thread – using Bluetooth from your phone to a laptop in the classroom – you are then going to use the voicethread to tell a story about the significance of information technology by adding some comments yourself either by text or voice. You are then going to share your voice thread with the class for others to comment.

Using elluminate two year eleven students and i presented cybersafety and how to manage your digital footprint to Anne Mirtschin’s Year 9 and 10 students at t Hawkesdale P-12 College. We had created a PowerPoint to present to the students and included some activities which could be completed after the session.

I facilitated and supported my students by moderating and changing slides and occasionally making a comment. The focus was placed on my students who presented and managed the class within the virtual room.

Natalie and Tim were wonderful they presented for an hour and half. They involved all the participants in activities and managed the students very well having some comment, some text in responses and some draw on the white board using a tool called Elluminate. Elluminate is a virtual room where there is a chat area, polling tools, whiteboard area and microphone all going simultaneously. Nat and Tim had the students using all three areas so that all students were focused and engaged. They directed students to write on the board or ask questions and for the rest of the class to make comments in chat area. It was fantastic to see my students teaching using elluminate, enjoying hearing the responses and getting a buzz out of how engaged their audience was.

It was a great experience for all of us and even though we had one drop out all students gained an enormous amount from the experience. Elluminate gave us the tools to keep the class engaged and involved in the presentation. Anne and her students gave some sensationally kind and valuable feedback for Nat, Tim and I.

Having used other video conferencing tools in the classroom i believe other tools would not have worked as well. The plus with elluminate is you can vary what the audience is doing: writing on the board while having someone else on the microphone making a comment, while others are typing in the chat box followed up using the polling tools. The multifaceted nature of elluminate is what makes it perfect for a classroom environment.

Here is a great creative, fun tool to create movies. The creator inputs: text, facial expressions and looks, chooses camera angles. With the inclusion of a range of basic body animations, pauses and sounds you have a unique movie created with incredible ease.

You can create text-to-movie 3d movies in minutes using either xtranormal or Instafilms . Instafilms is limited in that you have 3 scences to choose from:
war (Brothers in Arms),
school (Menlo Park) or
mystic warriors (Heavenly Sword).

For each scene there are alternative characters and backgrounds to choose and the option of having one or two actors or characters. Instafilms if free to use currently.

Xtranormal on the other hand has both a premium – pay all access option or a reduced options free account. The free account now offers users the choice of 6 worlds to set their movie. Each world now has limited options in terms of backgrounds and characters to choose from. Having 6 worlds to choose from does means more flexibility in terms of how it used and the many applications that are now possible.

There are many applications for using these fantastic tools in Educational settings. The potential uses are endless. Everything from introduction to film making to creating movies around specific topics where one person is explaining something or two people are having a conversation. My year 9 geography classes used it as an introduction to Urban Geography to explain what they liked about where they lived, some have used it to present research findings in the good, bad and interesting of a Melbourne suburb. In my commerce class students have made infomercials and we have used xtranormal to explain more complex concepts. Examples

Have a play and create a movie today to introduce a topic or a lesson to students. Then have your students make their own and embed into a ning, wiki or blog or upload to you tube. It is easy to use, students love it, testing out what is possible and how creative they can be. “Too much fun to be school work”, “this is fantastic”, “i’m going home to make more movies” “this rocks Ms Raff” were some of my year 9 students comments after using xtranormal for the first time. Give it a go you will be excited by the results and the potential of these Web 2.0 tools.

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This is a fantastic collaboration and brainstorming tool. Wallwisher is an online notice board with the difference. An interface that students love because they can be creative in the type of responses they give. Text, images, video, podcast or music all can be added to the wall.

I have used Wallwisher in several ways to brainstorm ideas, share information and as a reflection tool. It is very easy to set up and use. As the wall creator you have the options to determine who can view the wall and who can add sticky notes – lock the wall and allow only viewing or open it up to allow contributions.
Students enjoyed exploring what was possible and exploring other ways of contributing information. It was fun as all students can contribute at the same time. For a 10 minute quick activity it is a great hook into the lesson and a great tool for reflection at the end. The potential is endless, quite powerful for a simple tool.

Animoto produces slick, quick, professional looking movies from still images. It allows for some text and for the creator to focus on the content rather than the mechanics of making a movie. I used to have my students use imovie or windows movie maker to create movies about their fieldwork sites, advertisements etc now i use Animoto.
Why? Well the time consuming elements of the movie making process are taken out of the equation. I had my year 9 students create a movie on activities which occur in coastal environments and embed them into their wiki page in half a period. I wanted to engage them in our topic from the start and not overload them with technical complicated steps. This task would have been at least 3 periods if we were using anything other than Animoto.
Previously, i would have taught the how to of the program in one period. Then given the students two period to gather images and start putting them into a time line order, add text and then add transitions, effects and music. Some students wouldn’t have finished the task let alone uploading it to their page in the wiki. With Animoto not only did every student complete the task, they all embedded it on their pages, enjoyed it and wanted to create more movies. So how easy is it!

The movies are very easy to create.
You choose between a short or longer movie. The next step is to upload the images you wish to use.

It is very easy to use with a self explanatory menu at the bottom where you can add more images, add text, rotate images, delete images, spotlight an image or duplicate an image.
Once you have the images and text in you then click on 2 music and add music to your video there is in house music you can choose.

Music added you click on 3 finalize- this is where your movie is created. This is why it is fantastic for the classroom. No time wasted on transitions between photos and effects on photos like with movie maker or imovie or even final cut!

The great part about using animoto is the focus is on your task not on the movie making program. Using Animoto means the students have to think and be smart about the images they use and the order they place them in. They can’t tell the story with a large amount of text. Animoto won’t replace imovie or movie maker but it does give teachers and students the flexibility to use movie creation in a fun and creative way.

With Animoto for education you and your students get an all access pass. This allows you to create movies for longer than 30 seconds. To apply for Animoto for education