Day: August 24, 2011

Hi everyone,

I’ve made a 30 second slideshow of my trip to India last year using  Animoto. It was very easy to do and the longest bit is actually, waiting for the pictures to be uploaded- I decided to get something to eat while waiting. After that, you simply select the music you would like for the background (provided/ uploads possible) and they’ll send you an e-mail once it’s done.

I believe this would be very easy for students to use and from it they would be able to tell a story of a trip or event. They could even make a their version of a video clip of a book/film they are studying by first taking their own pictures and then compiling them into this clip. Oh what fun!

Here’s my slideshow. Enjoy!

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

 

 

After browsing blogs, I came across Ricki’s idea for wordles and thought I’d try one out myself.  What it is, is basically a program that allows you to display key words or concepts in a creative way (also known as a cloud). I’ve done a wordle on my blog by simply putting in my URL in the space provided and it churned this out (see picture below). As you can see, it picks out words that are most frequently used and enlarges them to show that they are more significant than others. Technology and teaching came out tops. That’s a good sign!

Things I can do with this in the classroom:

1. Like Ricki suggested, put in key words of a story and get students to guess how this story goes. A great introductory activity to a book/film.

2. Get students to create their own wordles at the end of the unit using key words they know of and swap with a friend. They each have to be able to talk about the unit and what they’ve learnt using those key words. Can be used for revision.

3. Get students to do one of their own blogs and get them to talk about why certain concepts were talked about more than others.

Let me know if you think of other examples! Thanks.

After watching Kelly’s impressive video on making a digital story using the ipads, I cannot wait to try it out myself. For those of you who haven’t watched it, you have to. Kelly did a fantastic job! However, because I don’t have an ipad, I’ll probably have to look for a different means of doing that (probably with my iphone).

 

Having said that, I’ve been doing some reading on the ipads in the classroom. It was in the news that Victoria was the first state to try out using the ipads in the classroom sometime last year. To read the article- click here. Following that, I have heard of several schools receiving the ipads but I personally have not had the chance to handle any classes with the ipads.

However, being interested in what else we could do with the ipads, I’ve stumbled across this website (click here- ipads in the classroom) that is full of teaching ideas and good videos on using the ipad in the classroom. I thought I’d share it with all of you in case you’re interested or in case you ever have to teach using the ipads and have no idea what to do!