Voki is a tool that allows you to create online avatars. These are great if you want to explain a process or even walk your students through an assignment online. You get to choose the hair, skin colour, accessories even the sound of the voice. This is an excellent way to nudge your students in the right direction for any online task or activity. It only takes about three or four minutes to put your voki together. You could even embed these into you class wiki or website. These are lots of fun and add another level of assistance for the students.
http://www.voki.com/
Monday, September 27, 2010
Wordle
Wordle is an application that allows the user to create word clouds from selected text. You can either nominate a website address, a del.icio.us account, you can just cut and paste the text or you can type it into the box. This is a great way for students to visually represent how the words in a piece of text also have a heirarchy.
Friday, September 24, 2010
Animoto
This is a little Web 2.0 tool that automatically makes 30 second, high resolution videos of your photos or images. This can be embedded into wikis, blogs or websites. There are multiple styles and scaffolds to chose from that will make it look like you have the skills to put together multimedia MTV style clips. These can be displayed within a frame or as full screen presentations.
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Digital Diary - VAPD
One of the things that we need to do in Visual Arts is to keep a diary of our processes. This should articulate our ideas and images, record our media experiments, study the ways other artists have responded and track our solutions that we develop to our own artistic problems. The Visual Arts Process Diary is a place for the art student to reflect on their artistic processes. This is not something that normally comes naturally to boys. Reflection is not something that they do well and we have struggled in the past to get them to record anything but the absolute basics.
We have started to use our laptops as a way of documenting this process. So, near the end of each lesson the students get an opportunity to photograph, blog, podcast or video exactly what they had been working on that lesson. They might discuss or illustrate techniques, solutions to a problem or just document where they are it in the production of their idea.
The idea was that anybody could pick up their video and see how their work went from idea to product. We have never had responses like this. These are the most comprehensive and reflective diaries that we have ever had. The boys can see why we should record this type of information and are even starting to make links between the artists we study and their own work without it being explicitly spelled out for them.
Here are some small snippets from Digital Process Diaries or activities recorded on their laptops;
We have started to use our laptops as a way of documenting this process. So, near the end of each lesson the students get an opportunity to photograph, blog, podcast or video exactly what they had been working on that lesson. They might discuss or illustrate techniques, solutions to a problem or just document where they are it in the production of their idea.
The idea was that anybody could pick up their video and see how their work went from idea to product. We have never had responses like this. These are the most comprehensive and reflective diaries that we have ever had. The boys can see why we should record this type of information and are even starting to make links between the artists we study and their own work without it being explicitly spelled out for them.
Here are some small snippets from Digital Process Diaries or activities recorded on their laptops;
Web 2.0 Logins
One of the important lessons that we attempt to teach our students is to be proper digital citizens.
The major concept of this is online safety and information security. To this end we have recommended that the students set up a school gmail account separate to their personal emails.
They can do this very quickly. Most Web 2 tools require a email login and so for both ease of use and security we ask them to use this gmail account for nothing else. This means that at no time do commercial companies or third parties get hold of student's personal email information.
Of course we also have the conversation about not giving out any personal details at all and that if that situation comes up that the teacher is to be notified immediately.
The major concept of this is online safety and information security. To this end we have recommended that the students set up a school gmail account separate to their personal emails.
They can do this very quickly. Most Web 2 tools require a email login and so for both ease of use and security we ask them to use this gmail account for nothing else. This means that at no time do commercial companies or third parties get hold of student's personal email information.
Of course we also have the conversation about not giving out any personal details at all and that if that situation comes up that the teacher is to be notified immediately.
Glogster
Lots of people have heard of Glogster. It is a web 2.0 tool that allows you to construct interactive posters. It is great for students too and only requires a simple email login. The beauty of this tool is that it is truly multimedia. You can include images, text, music and video all on the one doucment. It is a digital collage that can have embedded hotspots that are activated by the viewer. This is literally a drag and drop tool that kids can be using within 5 minutes of introducing them to it. I just love the fact that students have to source the media, evaluate it's effectiveness and re-present it within a graphic context. A great way to achieve a deeper level of understanding than just using a traditional cut and paste collage.
Saturday, September 18, 2010
MacMasters
One of the initiatives that has been put in place at our school is the MacMasters. This group are a bunch of Yr 9 students who were identified as students who had shown a knack for the laptops or were tech savvy. Some students were nominated, some were invited to be part of the group. They now meet once a week with our e-Learning co-ordinator to be skilled up. The idea is that these students will become the experts for both staff and students. If a teacher would like to instigate a task that utilises computer technology or a Web 2.0 tool, one of the MacMaster students works with them as tech support. They will also be asked to contribute to our growing library of Jing instructional videos. on top of this they will contribute an article to online e-zine "A byte of the Apple". There is a social kudos that these kids have received at our school. Some that originally declined the offer have come back to request a place on the program.
Thumbtack Mic
I had tried to record a number of Podcasts with the inbuilt microphone on my MacBook but was not happy with the quality. If I was going to present this to students surely I had to model a good quality product myself, so I was on the lookout for a good quality mic. Then I found this sexy little thing. I love the look of it and I love the quality. You can get them from the States for $12 but it costs you a fortune to ship them out here. I got mine for $24 at a computer wholesaler. This thing works a treat. Your quality jumps by about 200% but I would have bought it anyway - just look at it. How cool is this thing!
Wix - Drag and Drop Website
Design and build your own Flash website. This is a free Web 2.0 tool with lots of features. Wix allows you to browse 100s of site templates and find one that is similar to the one you want. You then customise the template, adding your own media, fonts and colours. Change the page headings or add ones that your template doesn't have. This is a quick to build but very professional finished product. I especially love the cover flow picture gallery. Buy a $10 domain name and you are in business.
Use of a Class Wiki
I love to set up class wikis. Before they started to charge, we used to use Ning. Will have to find another one that offers the same features and flexiblility. For an art class wikis are good for uploading photographs of your works. These can be commented on by other people in the class, or even rated as part of peer assessment. It does not take long to create a safe atmosphere for this to happen. I also like to make an "Artwork of the Week" to showcase some excellent work or a innovative technique. Each of the students can have there own home page to personalise.
This can become part of a digital portfolio as the students can document;
This can become part of a digital portfolio as the students can document;
- what media they used
- what were their intentions
- what e-tools did they use - if any at all
- what was their audience reaction
- what were they really happy with
- what would they do differently next time
Quizlet - Online Study
Quizlet is a Web 2.0 tool that allows you to make fun interactive flash cards. You can set up words, definitions even images to commit to memory (images are an extra and cost you a small fee - $1.00.) It is a fun way for students to remember. My senior students use it to remember the names and artists of works we are studying in our case studies. There are three different modes; familiarise, learn and test. The best thing about the testing mode is that the students can time themselves. This introduces a gaming element and the students respond very well to attempting to beat their best score and time. Very addictive just like any good game, but your students just happen to be learning at the same time.
Friday, September 17, 2010
Artistic Practice
This is another of the Digital Textbooks designed to maximise students understanding. Artistic Practice is one of the three notions that Visual Arts Syllabus is based on. The linking to the Syllabus documents and the creation of answers is the key here. The students need to locate, collate and then present the information. The iMovie activity was mentioned in an earlier blog. This was a highly successful learning experience.
Voicethread - collaboration
Voicethread is the perfect Web 2.0 tool to collect and share comments from your classes about a single or set of source materials. The source material can be text, images or videos. You can ask a question of them or ask them to reflect on a specific aspect of the image. The students can then type a comment, annotate the source material or even draw arrows and lines to emphasise their comments. The beauty of this tool is that all the comments show on the one page. This would be the quickest way ever to mark homework. I love this idea! If you register as an educator you can access some of the features normally reserved for the paid version.
Timetoast - Digital Timeline
Timetoast is one of the Web 2.0 digital timeline creators. It is easy to use and can be constructed quickly by students with absolute minimal instruction. I like the hotspots that are activated by the mouse when you scroll over them. This is perfect for adding another layer of information to your timeline. This is a great tool to use with any age when you want them to see an event of a series of events within a context.
Issuu - Online Publishing
Issuu is a Web 2 tools that allows you to publish PDFs. You can produce the documents in any program that you like - I prefer PAGES on the Mac. Once you have created a stunning document to impress the world, simply log on to Issuu and upload your PDF. The whole process takes about 2 minutes and you now have a digital magazine style document. This can be embedded into a blog or onto your website. The example of digital textbooks on this blog have all been embedded as stand alone documents. Give some thought to the tags that you attach to your new magazine so that plenty of people can find it in the online library. If you do not want everyone to see it tick this in the box when you are setting it up and only give the address to the people who you want to see your foray into the publishing world. This would be great for storybooks, illustrated stories or making picture books.
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