Week 5

DVolver Movie Maker's scenarios are not really suitable for primary school students, it is aimed more for adults. However, while I was using DVolver I could see how it would be useful for developing primary students literacy skills whilst exploring with animation. It could also be used as a great tool for preparing / drafting a class role play.

ZIMMER TWINS is a fun and easy to use animation program that is much more suited for primary kids. It uses storyboarding to build up an animation. This would be a great introduction to animation's INSPIRE - PLAN - CREATE moto.
There are so many options you can play with and this would really encourage kids to draw on their imagination and creativity when storyboarding.

BUILD YOUR WILD SELF was a very funny program that would work perfectly in lower primary and could tie into english, humanities, and science domains of the curriculum. Each students 'Wild profiles' would make a colourful classroom display.

REBUS STORY is a cloze but uses pictures rather than words. A handy activity to break up writing in English while still developing literacy, particularly for those students who are reluctant with writing.

Today we also looked at Xtranormal, a fabulous animation software where the characters can even lip sync!
Ziptales is a great program that is targeted towards Grade 3 & 4 students who are excellent at writing.
catchmentdetox.net.au (ABC Science) is fantastic for challenging students to think about sustainability in the environment.

Finally, Greg got us to play the word game 'Ode to a spell checker' using Microsoft Word. We turned off our computer screens and typed text that Greg read aloud to us. Once finished we turned on our screens and looked at what we had really typed.... I was surprised I didn't have too many mistakes, considering that I am not a whiz at touch typing! I think this kind of activity is a good eye opener for primary students to remember that they still need to learn how to spell because they will not always have access to a spell checker.

Week 4

Using Microsoft Excel we created fun, engaging M&M colour charts. Primary school children can use Excel as a digital tool for exploring the many ways of displaying data in Maths. This strongly helps visualise complex information and helps builds kids confidence.
I can imagine fantastic discussions stemming from this activity. 

http://www.abc.net.au/dustechoes/
Dust Echoes has a selection of 12 animated dreamtime stories from Central Arnhem Land. I chose to watch Mermaid Story, a Dhuwa story about belonging and the importance of family and our land. I found the combination of music and images so moving. Without any narrative I was able to be taken into the story and feel so much about the song mans journey.




From all the activities in our workshop this week I can see how Learning Objects (LO’s) will kick off other activities to extend learning in the classroom.

In our lecture Greg showed us the huge variety of LO's that are available through The Learning Ferderation website: http://www.thelearningfederation.edu.au/default.asp
I really liked the Democracy game, which looked at creating rules for a fair voting system to elect a school captain. Perfect for Grade 6-ers!

Week 3

Week 3 – The Protection of Students Online

In our lecture this week I found the issue of cyber bullying really upsetting. When I was at school bullying certainly took place, I personally suffered from it, but the nature of cyber bullying was not fully established. Obviously any form of bullying is terrible but in some ways I think cyber bullying is harder to control and potentially more damaging. Bearing this in mind, as a teacher I will endeavor to model the use of appropriate online behavior and inform children about their responsibilities as safe and respectful online users.

There are lots of different ways you can inform people about online safety. Acceptable Use Agreements (AUA’s) are a more formal way and deal with outlining guidelines for everyone: teachers, students and parents. Cybersmart (http://www.cybersmart.gov.au/) is great educational website set up by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA). It promotes the Australian Government’s cybersafety program, which aims to show young kids how to safely enjoy the online world. Cybersmart has two Interactive Shared Learning (ISL) activities that are popular in upper primary classrooms today: Cybersmart Detectives focuses on the issue of posting personal information and Cybersmart Hero deals with cyber bullying.

At the beginning of our workshop we investigated the VELS Interdisciplinary Learning strand and its domain of Design, Creativity and Technology.

This domain has three dimensions:

• Investigating and designing (ID)
• Producing (P)
• Analysing and evaluating (AE)

In our “Make the Frog Jump” activity we completed a Design Brief worksheet that is typically used in classrooms to explore the ID/P/AE process. He helps kids to map out thinking which leads to a design strategy. By displaying a whole classroom of Design Brief worksheets the children can read about other design strategies and broaden their own thinking. It was fascinating to see in our own group the range of different approaches to making the frog jump. Greg highlighted that the ID/P/AE process is cyclic and as teachers it is important to celebrate the process of how a child thinks.

Next Greg showed us a fantastic games development software program, Quia. It allows you to easily create online learning activities, for example quizzes, which are fun ways for children to apply their learning of an area recently studied. The online activities could also be a helpful assessment tool for Teachers. Word finds, jumbles, or hangman are useful spelling activities without the kids directly associating it to doing spelling. The activities can be applied to all areas of the curriculum. I created a quiz and cloze.

http://www.quia.com/quiz/2542609.html

http://www.quia.com/cz/350155.html

We had so much doing each other’s quizzes and activities!

I have taken some time to look at the Creative Commons website. It will be a great resource for me as a teacher to find and share licensed material, legally.