Stop Motion Animation

As part of my preparation for working with the Digikidz this week I have been watching videos!  I really liked this video sourced from http://mashable.com/2010/05/29/stop-motion-videos/

I have found a collection of short animations by 9 year olds to share with the Digikidz as exemplars.  The plan is to view and then discuss the children's likes and dislikes about the animations so they can start think about what they might like to do with their own project.  I am then going to introduce them to the idea that they are going to include symbols in their animations with the purpose being to share these with English second language learners so they can understand the story without the audio.  We can then come up with a setting for each story.  After this we will work together to create storyboards, collect props and create the scenery.

Descriptive writing using Photostory 3.0

I worked with each class in Year 0/1 this week to collate their photos, some but not all taken by the children themselves, into a slideshow and help them to record their descriptions of well known NZ treats.

I worked with a range of children.  The Digikidz were very confident and knew the success criteria for recording a story using a microphone (speak confidently with medium volume and speed).  The children who were new to school or who have not had an opportunity to use a microphone either with myself or their class teacher were much less confident and unsure about practising reading their writing until they knew it really well.  However, they were quickly able to identify what they could improve on after listening to their recording.  It was exciting that JB, LW, PJ and MK were able to record their audio perfectly the first time.  I don't think they actually needed my support at all! 

Kid Pix Problems Continue

I worked with Belinda today and we still didn't manage to sort out our ongoing Kid Pix problems exporting slideshows to Quicktime and we actually discovered the additional problem of being unable to export pictures to jpeg format. While Googling problems exporting Kid Pix to Quicktime one of the hits was a link to my own post on this blog!

The problem was temporarily solved by taking screenshots of the pictures using Screenshot Studio which can be downloaded at http://screenshot-program.com/ and is a great free tool for PC users. Other options are possible for different prices but the free version works really well and is almost as good as the Mac alternative, or so I have been told!

And then importing into Photostory and then re-recording all the audio. Overall not the easiest way to share our work on a blog. Hopefully our Technician will be able to solve these problems perhaps re-installing the software on each individual PC might be the only option.

Action Research Wiki

I have put together a wiki to hold all the data and examples of children's work I am rapidly gathering together at the moment! It can be viewed at: http://fairvresearch.wikispaces.com/ and I would welcome any feedback you might have as this is my first experience with action research. I am currently struggling with a couple of things: the first is how to export Kid Pix slideshows, photostories etc into Quicktime or YouTube to allow me to embed them in my wiki. Photostory is really simple to add to a blog but I have not found Kid Pix slideshows as easy. Hopefully I will solve this problem soon so I can add some of the super work the children have been doing and this will show the progression as they have opportunities to explore the software. The second problem I have encountered is that I can't record long sentences on Kid Pix slides. The Pod 2 Digkidz I am working with did a great job of finding out information about a chosen native tree. They drew a leaf from their tree in Kid Pix then we recorded the audio but I noticed that the program stopped before they had finished speaking and when I played the file it only had recorded part of what they said. BJ said this might be a memory problem. I have looked in the Teacher's Notes and the Help and Settings and can't figure it out. I am now going to Google so watch this space and I'll report back if I have success. Otherwise any Elm Park teachers who are Kid Pix experts I'd appreciate your advice!

Supporting my Team

As the lead teacher for ICT in my Team I have used two different ways of supporting my team members this Term as they are at different stages and have different needs and also have individual personal ICT Goals for this year which link to their performance management at the end of the year.

For TG and RT who don't have projectors in their classrooms I provided individual support within their class. So each was given a block of my release where I discussed with them in advance what they would like to work on then went into their class and helped them achieve this. RT was keen to do a photostory with a group of capable children and also for the teacher aide to observe and participate so she could assist in the future. We successfully made a photostory for the letter p with the children finding lots of things beginning with that letter and taking photos which were then uploaded into a photostory which the children added transitions, titles and music to. They were very keen and RT then went on to make a photostory on popcorn which was part of our Pod 1 assembly this Term.

TG was keen also to do a photostory which we did for the letter m which had been their letter of the week for the previous week and so the children had already discussed items beginning with that letter. After that we introduced the children to their class knowledgeNET page which TG is developing together with me at the moment. The children played reading and maths games and practised logging on and browsing through the different areas.

For JL and WD who are new projector users this year I invited them to observe in my room. JL wanted to observe maths and so I had a group doing a smartboard activity using interactive number dice and adding them then completing the word and number problems. I had planned to have a group using rainforest maths which is a fantastic website which I secured a username and password for at the beginning of the year but which I feel I have been neglecting a bit! Unfortunately the site was under maintenance so we were unable to use the planned for activity. However, I was able to use another knowledgeNET link to a similar activity and showed JL how I hyperlink to my worksheets and websites and smartboard activities from my weekly plan which she found helpful.

WD observed a group doing blogging on my class computers. Unfortunately we are in the middle of changing over internet provider and so the internet was fluctuating. However, we managed to get all 4 children in the group to view a poem in one of our blog friends blogs and they then orally told me a comment which I scribed in their writing books and they posted. We had to do one at a time on one computer which was the only one working but it was ok because I always anticipate there will be problems and had paper publishing for the group to work on while they took turns blogging. Luckily though this was my teaching group and I wasn't having to manage something else at the same time! I also had a group working with my teacher aide on our letter of the week g and finding objects with a g - goat sound and a g - gel sound and separating these into 2 groups. The children then took digital photos which I uploaded to our class blog.

I really enjoy supporting other people but every time I do some sharing or have someone observing I am reminded how organised and prepared you have to be thinking through what might happen so that when it does you are not caught out! The best advice I can offer during technical difficulties is stay calm and if all else fails flag it and move on!