viernes, 27 de septiembre de 2013

TIC 2.0 Applications talk.

LOGBOOK

WEEK: Monday 23rd September, 2013 to Sunday 29th September 2013.
DATE: Friday, 27th of September, 2013
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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!


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