LOGBOOK
WEEK: Monday 23rd September, 2013 to Sunday 29th
September 2013.
DATE: Friday, 27th of September,
2013
------------------------------------------------------------
THE TALK
Today I could attend a talk on TIC 2.0,
-technologies of the information and communication-, in which an expertise on
the field proposed us a huge variety of virtual gadgets and online applications
which could be applied to the English classroom.
Through the talk, the speaker highlighted the importance
of teachers’ happiness. He explained children are visual and want a quick
response on task evaluation, nowadays a gap between pupils and teachers in need
of being bridged.
After this brief introduction, he stated all
the benefiting effects the use of 2.0 applications could have in English
students. These benefits are the applications being catchy and motivating for
the children, and bring them the possibility of creating stories, films,
animations or cartoons. He also mentioned these tools could be used to work in
groups, so that new generation pupils will no longer need of extra courses in
order to learn working together.
Finally, due to the easiness with which
students and teachers could have positive results by using these technologies,
their self-esteem is likely to be raised, which is another argument for the use
of 2.0 technology in class.
I specially appreciated the way the speaker
referred to 2.0 TIC as a tool, rather than finality itself. He told us we could
use some of these tools, all of them or using none at all, being the choice up
to us. Personally, I believe I will use some of these tools for specific
purposes, at the same time I combine them with other non-technologically supported
tools and activities.
THE PROCESS
The speaker advised to have everything arranged
before moving to using 2.0 applications with the children, in a
3-step-procedure:
1-Explain the children what are they going to
do.
2-Tell them how to do it, prepare or make them
look for all needed material before going to the application.
3-Once at the application, knowing what to do
and how to do it, the teacher will let them work on it.
THE APPLICATIONS
SNAPGUIDE: http://snapguide.com/ Snap guide is a website which allows you to
create small guides by using a big picture support packed with some text, in
order to explain the different steps on a procedure. Pupils can benefit from using
this resource in class in a way that they indirectly learn how to make a guide or
an instructional text. The teacher can make pupils create their own cooking
recipes (or bringing some from home) or create a guide on how to use a 2.0
application they were familiar with, in order to share it with inexperienced
pupils from a lower grade, for instance.
WOKI: http://www.voki.com/create.php
Woki is an online application which
allows you to create your own customized avatar with any background image you
choose, with the peculiarity this avatar will be able to say anything you
record by using your microphone, or even by reading a written text. In my opinion,
it is a brilliantly funny application, which can be used by pupils to describe
interesting places in their town or city, by placing the right background image
and creating the avatar with the children’s resemblance and voice.
THINGLINK: http://www.thinglink.com/ Thing link is a website which allows you to
upload an image, project it and set some points which are indeed links to
embedded videos, websites or explanation. I think it is a revolutionary tool
for conceptual map elaboration, and can be of real utility in the English classroom.
Imagine the teacher asks pupils to make a thing link about films in London.
Pupils should have to make a research on films shot in England, look for their
promotional videos in YouTube and set links on an England map which link this
to these videos and some explanation on the most emblematic London places which
appear in the film. It would be a meaningful way of promoting research and wish
for expanding your own culture.
DOMO GOANIMATE: http://domo.goanimate.com/ I had already experienced Goanimate
interactive video game possibilities, by playing a video game called “alien
attack” by me. However, today I have been given the possibility of experience
Goanimate real didactic possibilities. Goanimate is a website which allows you
to create different scenes by dragging some characters into a background and
set their movement/expression default animations for the next scene to be
displayed, at the time you introduce dialogues and even music.
It is similar to creating cartoons. Pupils can
think of a story and turn it into an animation to be shared with their friends.
The application also allows the insertion of embedded links, which allows
pupils to make an interactive visual novel, by making decisions that will bring
you to a different animations and thus, different story outcomes. The teacher
could make small groups and give each group the task of making an animation
regarding a different possibility within the story. At the end of all, the
teacher can link them up so that pupils can play the game in class or share it
with their friends, which will be a meaningful work which will amaze their
parents for sure.
STORY BIRD: http://storybird.com/create/ Story bird is a
wonderful application for children to make their own Tales, with their own
music and their own plot. I am a music composer, and I have my own songs which
could be used by the children to ambient their stories. You have the option to
choose from an art box database to make the children’s story. However, for me,
this possibility limits the story to the pictures. I would make the pictures of
the story in Arts and crafts class by painting and so on and then use these in
the English classroom to set up the whole virtual story, which could be
embedded to the classroom blog.
FOLDING STORY: http://foldingstory.com/ Folding story is a
quick tool to create interactive, múltiple ending stories, with only written
text. I would use it in combination with Goanimate tool, so as pupils can have
it easier to make an story in the first place by using folding story, calculate
the diferent scenes or endins and then tur nit into animation sequences with
goanimate tool (see above).
PIMPAMPUM: http://www.pimpampum.net/es/projects_lab
This website has a compilation of TIC tools which can be used for
different purposes. Some of them can be used to make stories, drawing with
photos, creating video comics, editing photos and making photo books, amongst
others.
PRESENT ME: https://www.present.me/content/
As a Student I always wondered why I couldn’t make a video and show it to the
teacher and my schoolmates instead of nervously having to do the presentation
in front of them. Sometimes I could almost swear I would have been able to
perform better had I not have the pressure of live performance. Well, “Present
me is the solution to this problem!” This website allows pupils to record
themselves by using their webcam and, at the same time, display their work on
the left side of the screen, so that viewers can see the pupil’s work on
display at the same time he explains it in the video.
Personally, I would suggest using this option
for pupils who doesn’t have the confidence to do the live presentation in front
of the class. Also, it could be an option for the other students to recover
from a bad mark, having the possibility to improve without worrying about
failing again before they can recover the lost confidence and get ready to
perform live.
GLOGSTER: http://www.glogster.com/ Glogster is a platform which allows pupils to
create interactive posters, in which embedded links, tools or Applications can
be inserted. It is useful for making a film meny, as well as making presentations
based in an interest tòpic. The teacher might propose the children to create a
Glogstwer about their pet or favourite animal with pictures and links to diferent
websites. They could also upload photos taken at the zoo or vídeos from the
internet. They could even attach music files or sound files to allow viewers
know which sound does the animal make. (No I’m not talking about Ylvis’ The fox
song! Lol).
PREZI: http://prezi.com/
Prezzi is a tool which allows you to create conceptual maps displayed in a
dynamical cool fashion. It differs from Power Point in the fact that the camera
moves through a map, zooming in and out and scrolling through the map in order
to show its different ideas in the right order. I think it can always be
useful, although I don’t like it as much or see its function as other applications
listed in this entry.
TIC 2.0: HOW TO DO THE ASSESSMENT
Now the question is: How can we, as teachers
assess pupils’ TIC 2.0 work? Well, it’s simple. There is a website, called “rcampus”
which has some charts already designed to do the assessment. Click on the link
to see the chart.
I think this website can ease teachers’
assessment task, as it saves them the time to build the chart and gives them
orientations on how to assess the task. However, I would advise teachers to
modify the proposed chart according to the ever-changing students’ needs.
Well, that's all for now. I hope you had enjoyed the post and maybe will use these aplications in your lessons as teachers! Thank you very much for reading! Feel free to share this blog with your friends and comment from time to time! See you! I'd like to give my special thanks to the expertise for attending today's comference and telling us so many useful resources!
By the way, this is my symbaloo right now, after introducing these new tools! It's getting bigger! I guess I will have to expand it soon!
