Week 5 - Making Movies

Another jam packed workshop. I have included some of the most useful and interesting websites below. Have a look and enjoy!!!

Zimmertwins invites children to create their own movies that they can then share with their class mates, friends and parents. The movie making tools are easy to use. Though limited in in some respects (e.g children choose from a limited number of pre-made scenes) I think Zimmertwins would be a great way to teach children about episodic writing.

Dvolver is another great movie making website, though probably not appropriate for primary school children due to some adult images (e.g. overly voluptuous female characters.). Apparently DFilm (the website managers) will be upgrading the site for Primary school children, so keep an eye out for changes to the site.



Xtranormal is another great animation website with some great graphics and lip syncing. The children choose their characters, scenes and dialogue. Xtranormal is not as simple to use as the other programs but allows kids to exercise greater creativity. Probably best suited to the older kids.

The Wildlife Conservation Society, on behalf of New York Zoos and Aquarium, devised Build Your Wild Self as a way to encourage children to explore wildlife. Children first design their own human self and the choose their favourite animal parts to add to themselves. Great fun way for children to explore animals and nature!




















Sketch Swap is another interesting website, though probably more suited for secondary kids than primary school children. In Sketch Swap children draw something on screen, submit their work, and then receive a random drawing from someone else. Unfortunately the images that may come back to children have the potential (although the website notes that all images are quality checked) to be unsuitable for kids. Having said that Sketch Swap is a great way to encourage users to share their art work.

Story Games is an animated Fairy Tale website. The site is well animated with engaging and familiar characters which will hold the attention of most students. Greg took the time to show us a Rebus story (uses pictures or symbols to represent words or parts of words). Seems like a great way to improve children's reading and comprehension.

Reasonably Clever is another avatar making site which use Lego characters. The beauty of this site is that it has a "kid safe zone". Check out my creation below!! While fun for the students, you will need to make sure that its use has some educational value. For example, you could study other cultures and ask children how a viking would dress?

Catchment Detox is an online game that allows children to manage a river catchment and to try and create a sustainable and thriving economy. Children get to decide what activities to undertake - when to plant crops, log forests, build factories or set up national parks. The aim is to avoid environmental problems and provide food and wealth fo the population. This is a fantastic game for children to play. While it does take time to comprehend the "ins and outs" of the game, once children understand how to play you won't be able to get them off their computers. Best suited to Grades 5 and 6 when conducting a unit on the Environment. The real beauty of this game is that you could use it as an activity for months!!!

Myths and Legends is a storytelling and movie making website. The site contains numerous myths, folktales and legends from the British Isles. Students can either read the text on the screen or listen to the story being read to them. While not Australian content (would be great if it was) there is definite reading and comprehension value to be had from this site.

In doing a little research for this blog, I came across FluxTime animation. It seems pretty good and looks like fun. Just like the other animation websites, has great educational potential. Take the time and have a look.

I also found the Clay Animator website which Greg had listed on LMS. The website was created to provide students with information on the clay animation process. Clay animation is an exciting technology that captures the imagination of students of all ages. Story telling can literally be brought to life and students will have a new zest for creating inventive stories. I will definitely give clay animation a go when I have my own class.

When I first started this subject I thought it a bit of waste. After finishing the blog, I have found it quite useful and realise that I didn't know as much as I thought I did. In addition, having Greg provide us with the websites provide an excellent resource and saved me heaps of research time. Thanks Greg!!!!

Week 4 - Dust Echoes

Today's exercise required students to retell a story from the Dust Echoes site. Dust Echoes is a series of twelve animated dreamtime stories from Central Arnhem Land in Northern Australia that enables students to explore a range of indigenous related themes such as Dreamtime and Symbolism.

The site is extremely well done with excellent soundtrack and graphics styles. However, the content is quite dark and may only be suitable for the higher grades.

One way to utilise the site is through children creating a storyboard using Inspiration and Paint (my attempt is below). I chose the Brolga Song which investigates relationships and connections with the natural world. In case you can't tell from the sotry board, the story is about Victor (a song man) who has no Father or Grandfather. Without these figures in his life, he lacks a connection to the land and starts to search for the spirit of his Father and Grandfather through the animals. He finally finds the spirits of Grandfather and Father in two Brolgas. They appear to answer his questions and help him regain his connection with the land.

We then investigated the use of M&M's (or anything similar if worried about allergies) in a graph exercise using Excel. I chose an exercise that would require students to sort the M&M's by colour and count the groupings. This information can then be directly placed in Excel or placed on a parer table/chart. Using a pack of M&M's my Chart is below.

This exercise is ideal for investigation into chance and risk activities, data collection and graph development. The M&M website also has a little educational cotnent which may be useful for further extension activies for studnets.

Greg gave another good lesson with some great content which will be really valuable when I get that elusive job.

Week 3 - The Frog Jump

Today we were given a design brief to create a contraption which makes a paper frog. We were told that all we could use was a: paper frog; rubber band; cardboard; and sticky tape. Theactivity was accompanied by an Investigate/Design, Produce and Analyse/Evaluate recording sheet.

Sean and I employed a catapult system design which worked with differing success (see the picturebelow). Interesting to see all the other approaches employed throughout the class. Makes for an interesting activity for the studentsbeing both fun and educational. However, while it was a fun activity, the real valueof this exercise would come from students completing the sheet and developing their higher order thinking skills. Importantly the process is cyclical in that if it doesn't work the first time, or could be improved, students have another attempt. The degree of difficulty could also be increased for those students which finish early e.g. tell those students that they have to redesign their creation to make the frog jump 1 metre.

Today's other activity focused around the use of QUIA which facilitates the development of web based educational activities. Our first task was to create our own quiz.

I chose a native animal quiz (What is My Favourite Animal?) which you see below. Great activity for kids, though the 30 day trial limitation is an issue. Good for kids to get to know each other though may create a bit of competition by having kids have to get the right answer -fear of failure.

We also created a few games on QUIA. I created a politically correct version of Hangman (see the piccy below taken from my phone). Thought this was a great activity for kids to work in pairs with both students developing their own themed hangman and then testing each other - will be great for spelling and creativity!!

QUIA is a great educational tool that can be used by the teacher or the student. Will definitely employ QUIA when (and if) I get a teaching job.

This week's lecture, which wasn't really touched on during the workshop, was on the protection of students online. After reading through the information and trying to monitor children on computers while on Practicum, I realise that this is a huge task! While I can control the information that I provide to chidlren (e.g. verifying the content of a website prior to conducting activites based on the website) I beleive it will be particualry difficult to stop children searching the web themselves and inadvertently coming across inappropriate content. This issue was highlighted to me when my Practicum class informed me that they all had FaceBook accounts. While Acceptable Use Agreements and Codes of Practice are a useful tools, vigilance on behalf of the teacher and parents will still be required.

Week 2 - Getting a Job

Today's workshop provided advice on how to get a job, what to do, and what not to do.

Given the number of students graduating it seems like a mammoth task to get an interview for a job. Having applied for jobs in the public service in a previous life, I know what an effort preparing job applications can be. A good way to think about applications are that they are the cheese in your mouse trap.

So in a perfect world, you do a whiz bang application and the school gives you a call to come in for an interview. It seems like quite a scary process exposing yourself to a selection panel who have likely had years of experience is quite daunting. Greg's advice is to be well prepared (good advice!) and to practice answering mock questions in the mirror. I have done this before, and while I felt like an idiot, it does able you to respond a little more quickly and coherently to the questions posed at the interview. My thoughts are that even if I don't get the job, the interview process is great practice for the next interview, and the next interview. Check out the Victorian Department of Education's website for further information on how to get a teaching job in Victoria.


Greg also provided some interview advise that seems like common knowledge but it is worth remembering. For example, do not wear too much perfume and aftershave, make sure you are on time etc.

After the workshop, I think what is needed most is to sit down and think about the interview process and pitcure what could happen, what questions could be asked etc. I found this on the St Patrick's College website, and though not Australian, is designed for Pre-Service teachers and the interview process. Check it out!


The second half of the workshop looked at the use of MS Publisher by students for an integrated approach to teaching and learning. Our task was to create a tourist brochure about a place where we would like to visit. My brochure was a mock surf safari brochure.



















I found Publisher extremely easy to use, and think it would be a fantastic tool for students to use in the classroom. Greg also showed us how we could use Publisher to develop our own e-portfolio to show at job interviews. While I thought the concept of an e-portfolio discussed in the lecture was a bit cheesy, I will trust Greg's experience on this one and spend some time in the next few weeks to develop my own e-portfolio. I find the Commonwealth Department of Education's website to be really useful in understanding and developing e-portfolios - check it out if your are interested.

Yet another valuable lesson Greg!

Week 1 - The Beginning

Blogging - I thought it was something that was solely the domain of Generation X. After today's workshop, I realise that blogging is simple and valuable tool for facilitating learning the classroom.

We were introduced to two new websites/software programs today - Blogger and Inspiration. Blogger is a free blog publishing tool from Google that enables users to share their thoughts with others on the net. Blogger makes it simple to post text, photos and video onto personal webpages.

Inspiration is visual learning tool that encourages students to develop and organise their ideas. We did two Inspiration based examples today. The first one was a diagram that I developed to illustrate my taco preferences. Tacos are one of my favourite foods, but to really tickle my fancy, tacos need to have the right ingredients. Using differently weighted arrows, the diagram illustrates how my preferred essential ingredients for tacos are cheese, jalapenos and meat, while optional ingredients are lettuce and tomato. After completing this exercise I realised what a useful tool Inspiration may be in facilitating children's understanding of different relationships (while also improving their IT skills).

The second diagram is a mindmap of some bushfire management issues, an topic that I worked on in a previous life. When working on my busfhire work, I found mindmaps to be an invaluable tool, particularly at the outset of idea formulation. Interestingly, I have found that some people are very anti mindmapping software and view it as a waste of time. I guess it comes down to the way our brains work. For me it was perfect, but if I use this software in the classroom I think I will have to keep my eye on students to monitor how they utilise the software.

While the Inspiration mindmap was somewhat limited compared to some of the other mindmap software programs I have used, it is perfect for primary school children (and affordable). It is simple to use, colourful and has all the basic functionality that is needed for children eg. picture insertion. If your are interested in other mindmapping software, I suggest you visit MindManager or VisualMind.

As a preservice teacher, I am eager to use Inspiration (or similar tools) in the classroom and believe that they can be readily applied across a variety of disciplines. In addition, I believe that students love using IT and as such, a teaching approach which can integrate Maths, English etc with IT is a very valuable learning tool.

I can also see blogging as useful classroom tool, and like mind mapping software, I believe blogging can be used in a multi-disciplinary approach. The key benefits of blogging are that it is very attractive to younger children, can be readily viewed and shared with peers, and it allows the teacher to see how children's' ideas, knowledge and skills develop over time.