Module 5

This Digital Storytelling module was great because it opens one up to the myriad of ways to tell a story in digital form. Although pod and vodcasts are fantastic, they do require some expertise on the part of the teacher.

But you can create digital stories really quickly and easily with students (especially K-2) using applications that they may already familiar with, such as Photostory 3 and PowerPoint. They can create stories about:excursions, a unit of work they are currently doing, a maths or science activity showing what they learned and so on. All you need is to have the students (or teacher) take photos while they are doing the activity and then make the photos available for them to insert into their Photostory or PPT. Then they can either narrate the story or write captions or both and add music for effect and of course, share and enjoy their own and others' work.

When the kids are ready for a more involved digital story project, you can teach them (or they can teach you) how to use Garageband, iMovie or Movie Maker. This can involve still images again or video footage. It is amazing how motivating it is for students to work collaboratively towards producing their own "story", then watch each others' and even share them on a blog.

I have recently worked with students to produce podcasts based on an ordinarily "dry" Year 4 unit on British Colonisation". The kids wrote storyboards and scripts, produced artwork to illustrate the podcast, recorded their scripts, added effects (all in Garageband) and then shared them with each other, other classes and from the class blog, shared with their parents, friends and relatives (some from other countries). We must have watched those at least 20 times each! Favourite thing to do during a wet lunch...
Since then, we have created videos of interviews the students have devised on topics such as Plant Growth, Mini Vinnies, The Gold Rushes etc. I believe it is easier to create all this if you have a mac or two because the iLife suite of programs allows you to seamlessly bring in your photos, music and video clips. It's quite a bit more fiddly using a PC.

Youtube, Teachertube, Google Video etc are fantastic resources for making learning more visual and engaging for students. It is so much more exciting to introduce a concept or a lesson to kids when you can show them a well-chosen clip. At the moment we are doing a unit on South East Asia and I am using Youtube clips to give the students an up to date "visual" about the countries, their cultures and current issues affecting them e.g. forest fires in Borneo, quality of life in East Timor, environmental impacts of deforestation etc. These are free and current resources unlike expensive and out of date dvds. Of course a word of caution...anything you are going to show students MUST be previewed beforehand right through so that inappropriate images, language, concepts are avoided.

Module 4

This is a photo of mine that I have uploaded to Flickr. (You can see more at the bottom of my blog). It was taken in January off the coast of Krabi, Thailand. Great scenery!

I like Flickr mainly because it is easy to use for uploading and sharing pics but also because it is a good source of copyright free images for students and teachers to use in their documents, presentations, websites and blogs. The Creative Commons licensing detail is very useful and you need to check this out before use.

I would caution students and teachers to be aware of their "digital footprint" and to be careful not to upload anything personal or unsafe. Privacy is very important when dealing with images of people and you should not upload and share photos of yourself or other people (especially without their permission).

Module 3

My foray into Google docs has been fascinating and I've spent far more than two hours exploring and experimenting. I've made a website, a presentation about a recent holiday, a home budget spreadsheet and a document to share with friends. There is so much to say about Google docs...

How can it be applied to education? It's really exciting for schools and school communities for many reasons but the most over-arching of these is that it presents us with a "cloud" computing solution to the huge costs involved in keeping up with computer technology. Apart from hardware, software is very expensive for schools to purchase and upgrade and we are very dependent on Microsoft products. Google docs provides "office-like" apps (word processing, spreadsheet, presentation) for FREE along with online storage and the ability to share docs and collaborate in real time with others anywhere, anytime. Google is constantly improving and updating its products (as does Microsoft) but schools don't have to pay for this! It also means we won't have to spend large amounts on buying ever-bigger school servers to store our stuff onto.

I am imagining teachers at my school sharing and collaborating on programs and lesson plans, storing them online, giving and getting feedback, reviewing and commenting on student work anytime and anywhere. I am also imagining students working together on research, projects, presentations etc both at school and home and also getting peer and teacher feedback as they work. I am seeing the possibility of improved teamwork and contribution by all. The challenge will not be with the students, though...

Google apps also provide users with the ability to create their own websites and calendars, all stored online and accessible everywhere. No need to know html code, no uploading issues...so easy.

Module 2

This module made me feel quite knowledgable because I have been using blogs personally and in my classroom for about a year now. It was interesting in this module to explore all of the new gadgets and widgets that are available. There are literally thousands so you have to be choosy or your blog can become very busy. One of my faves is the widget that allows you to play your favourite music on the blog and check out these "fish" that you feed on your blog!

I find blogs to be a great way to document the learning in your classroom, to showcase the students' work and to share it all with people all over the place. Some of my students gave relatives in Europe and the US the blog address so they could see what their grandkids, nieces, nephews etc were learning about. We added a widget that showed where our blog viewers were on a world map. The kids loved that! They really worked hard on their tasks and artwork so it would be chosen for the blog. Built in motivation!

Another teacher at my school has started up blogs for special groups in the school such as the Mini Vinnies and Wakakirri groups. She posts photos and information about the groups' progress. Together we have taught ourselves how to post videos, podcasts and slideshows on our blogs using free Web 2.0 apps. Some problems we have had to overcome were privacy issues and settings, making video files small enough to be able to upload them but it has been fantastic learning.

I'm looking forward to learning even more about blogging and using it to enhance my teaching and the classroom experience for the kids.

Module 1

Hi there! I have spent a few hours on this module and set up what seems like fifty accounts but it's all done now and I'm in business. The pic is a screenshot of my igoogle homepage which I added some gadgets to: a currency converter, the weather in Rome and a countdown to my next trip in September to Europe!

A homepage like this is a neat way to quickly access all the bits and pieces you are interested in like news, latest Youtube videos or to play games or have a chat. I suppose all social networking sites have similar functionality and you just choose the one that suits you or you like best. Kids, teens, gen ys and xs are already doing all that and as teachers, we need to know what it's all about and capitalise on it.