Why not be Animated!?

I have found one thing about students in the classroom. They like to draw. Often they are not happy with the quality of their work, but I always encourage them to work at it and keep moving forward. They also have an interest in animation.

However, I have also found that most schools do not have the funding to provide animation software for their students. I have found an interesting site off my del.icio.us account that I have posted. Go Animate is an interesting animation program that students can use to get the flavor of creating unique animations. There is an account setup that must be gone through and there may be some student privacy/viewing issues that teachers/administrators will have to del with locally. It is still worth a look as students seem to be genuinely engaged in learning when animation is used.

Have you seen Alice today?

I'm a bit off on my making connections theme, but just bare with me for a minute. I have been working with gifted students over the last year and there is one student who is interested in animation and all that goes with it. Now, I am the first to admit that my understanding of animation software is minimal, but what I do know is that my district has none! We have worked with some free software to kind of get the process started. We tried Pivot Stickfigure Animator and that was fun for about an hour.

Over time we worked on a few other areas and then along came Alice. Who is Alice? Well, it is more like 'what is Alice?' According to the Alice website it is...an innovative 3D programming environment that makes it easy to create an animation for telling a story, playing an interactive game, or a video to share on the web. Alice is a teaching tool for introductory computing. It uses 3D graphics and a drag-and-drop interface to facilitate a more engaging, less frustrating first programming experience..

Well this would seem like a Eureka moment. A gift from Carnegie Mellon University Alice seems like the answer we were looking for. No it is not the top end of animation software. For students looking to get their 'feet wet' as it were; this may just be it.

I have talked to teachers who work with students with learning disabilities and they think the program would offer something different into the curriculum. I even spoke to a teacher yesterday who was so keen on the program she immediately asked for it to meet the needs of a highly gifted student who was struggling in all aspects of school life. This was exactly what he needed I was told.

Is there an educational use for Alice? YOU BET!

Digital Storytelling

Get a Voki now!



OK...I am not breaking new ground here. Digital Storytelling has been around for a while and there are a lot of resources to help understand how they work. What I do believe, is that they are not be used enough. Students have a natural attraction to different media and digital stories offers them the opportunity to really bring out their creative side while also getting them to write. Take a look at this LINK for example. Here we have a group of grade 7 and 8 boys creating a quick story that is, A) in their interest area, and B)giving them a reason to want to write.

They also have an authentic audience to receive their product via the wikispace that has been created to house their material.

Using digital storytelling in any class; math to teach a math concept, social studies to show routes of explorers or science to show experiments and labs will engage the student in the classroom and provide a more meaningful learning experience.

Working with Students

I have been working lately with students creating some really interesting projects. I have read so much about how we need to give students authentic learning opportunities and differentiate instruction based on interests that I thought I should research how to actually bring this to life. Many teachers are using technology in the classroom, but my concern was are they just using it as an "insert technology here" add-on, or a true lesson where technology is seamlessly integrated into the classroom.

So in the spirit of actually giving a concrete example of what students are doing, here it goes!

Getting students to write has always been a problem. I know I never liked the idea of sitting down to write something in classes and that was a couple of decades ago. Nothing seems to have changed. However, put a student in front of their MSN screen or their Facebook profile and they will write like there is no tomorrow. Why? Because they have an audience; a worldwide audience. Even better, an audience of their peers; their peers worldwide.

What I created was a project similar to "This I Believe..." from National Public Radio. I know I spoke about this before, but this post is about the "nuts and bolts" of the project. I am sitting down with the teacher and brainstorming how this fits in their classroom. Then we are approaching the students with the idea, showing them concrete examples of what they can do. So instead of writing for the sake of writing they are now writing about things that truly interest them. Fact, fiction, action, adventure, life, death, friendship. relationships as long as it interests them, it's good.

Then their writings are to be read by them. We are using audacity to record. They will then turn them into MP3's and post them on our website along with the document that they wrote. Now I wish I could claim that I invented this. I did not. I am a reader of many blogs and this came from a blog by Ms Smith. She has used the "This I Believe" format in her classroom as well. The only difference in hers and ours is that we will be using the format from grades 6 to 12 in a variety of different ways. Check back soon for the link to our first essays!

The 21st Century

I'm back! I could post to this blog everyday, but I am not sure if anyone would actually want to read every thought in my head. Recently I have been in a bit of a foul mood trying to push 21st century skills to 19th century practice. Don't get me wrong, there are wonderful learning opportunities happening for students everyday. I want them to be in all classes and they are simply..not. I was looking at the FETC website. FETC (Florida Educational Technology COnference) has screened the movie Two Million Minutes fora ll the attendees. What an opportunity.
While the movie focuses on the United States vs. China and India. It could be Canada, UK, or any western coutry instead of the U.S. This movie shows that if changes are not made, then we are going to see big changes in the future.
I think every teacher should see this movie. I think every student should see this movie. I think every parent should see this movie. You get the idea! It's just that important.
We can integrate with technology, inspire with praise and collaborate all we want, if there is not a fundamental change in teaching practice and student motivation, I think the 21st century high paying jobs are going to pass North America by.