(This infographic comes via Forrester Research and Business Week. Thanks to Free Tech for Teachers for the heads-up)
Peace (in the info),
Kevin
Author Archives: dogtrax
Storyboarding Stopmotion Movies
We continue to inch along towards the filming of our stopmotion movies around Figurative Language and my students are raring to go. But not yet. I had then storyboard out their ideas yesterday. I explained to them that these storyboards will become like a “roadmap” for the filming, guiding them along their story.
Here are a few pages of storyboards as a Flickr slideshow:
Peace (in the boards),
Kevin
“Playtime” with Stopmotion
(This shot seemed cool — it’s from my demo of using the software. You can see the set I have on the ground, the laptop and then the whiteboard.)
I always set aside a full class period for my student to play around with the technology they will be using for a project. Right now, we are about to begin a movie project in which they film a stopmotion movie around a Figurative Language term.
Yesterday, after showing them how to set the up the webcam and how to use the Stopmotion Animator program, I gave them each a WikiStix and let them be creative. They did not have to save their work yesterday, but many did. They were really jazzed up about the possibilities of stopmotion and were calling each other over to watch what they had done. Lots of energy in the room yesterday!
Here is a short one that I grabbed off a computer. This student used crayons as props. Remember: this is the first time she has ever even attempted a stopmotion video and this was done in about 30 minutes.
Peace (in the frames),
Kevin
The “Pitches” for Stopmotion Movies
I am hoping to end our school year on a creative note, launching a unit around Figurative Language through Stopmotion movies. My students are right in the starting stages. They have been given a Figurative Language term and now are working on a story idea around that term.
Yesterday, I had them working on a “movie pitch.” I told them to imagine that I had a few million dollars handy (as if …) and am ready to invest in a good movie idea. Their task was to convince me of their idea through the writing of a “pitch.” They had to submit their “pitches” at our weblog site as a way of sharing out their ideas.
Here are a few intriguing ones:
- Our figurative language is personification. In our movie we are going to have Oreo’s talking. One is saying that Oreo’s are Milks favorite cookie. Then another one says that milk doesn’t have feelings so they can’t have feelings. And that’s personification.
- Our movie pitch is an idiom. Our idea uses the idiom “Against the clock”. We plan to make our film about a kid who is last at taking a test and his teacher tells him he is going against the clock. So he starts daydreaming about a cheetah clock and him running in a race. Then his teacher tells him that what she said was just a idiom and he has to hurry up he feels relieved that he doesn’t have to race anyone so he finishes and gets a A on the test!
- This movie has alliteration in it. It starts off with two turtles walking on a trail. A person watching says an alliteration sentence involving the two turtles. Another person asks what he’s saying. The person then explains alliteration to the other person and walks away.
- Our movie is about personification. In our movie there are going to be two people talking about the wind and giving it characteristics. After, another character will appear and ask them why they are giving human like characteristics to the wind. The two characters will then explain what they are saying and what personification is.
- Our movie is about personification. There are going to be two kids talking,about the wind, giving it human-like characteristics. Then another character is going to ask them what they mean when they give the wind the human-like characteristics. After the two characters are going to explain what personification is.
- The figure of speech we got was Hyperbole. We are making a spoof on Free Willy. We are thinking of when Willy gets freed we would have Willy jump on a jet ski or into a random taxi. It is a hyperbole because we are stretching the truth by having him jump in a vehicle as he’s leaving, like a fairy tale.
- Our movie is about Imagery. We are focusing on a doctor’s office of terror. The main character is going to the doctor’s office and needs to face the cold, hard stethoscope. He starts to have a nervous breakdown from the sights and smells of the doctor’s office. In the end, he has a great appointment and gets a lollipop, which will get him a trip to the dentist. And that’s another story …
- Our movie is an Onomatopoeia. We plan to have a family of 5 that live in Southampton. The 3 kids are triplets named Nathan, John, and Alex. For the special occasion of the triplets birthday the parents take them to I Hop in Philadelphia. Alex orders a banana pancake in the I Hop when suddenly it rolls out of the restaurant. Alex and his family run outside curious of the pancake and see it as transformed to a giant ninja pancake that shouts rawr! The family starts to see sounds in words around Philadelphia and have to stop the banana pancake before it terrorizes our beloved Philadelphia.
Today, I will show them how to use our webcams and the Stopmotion Animator freeware and let them play around. Playing is a crucial part of this project at this stage. I want them to become comfortable with creating scenes in stopmotion.
Later, we intend to publish some of the best of the movies over at the Longfellow Ten website. If you haven’t checked that site out, do it. It’s a collection of student-created stopmotion movies.
And if you are interested in stopmotion, I have a website resource that I created with all sorts of resources. It’s called Making Stopmotion Movies (very creative, eh?)
Peace (in the frames),
Kevin
In Praise of Teachers …
Yesterday, I wrote about a workshop I was to give during the afternoon in a school in the large city down the road (I have another one this afternoon). My idea is to show free/no-cost tools to teachers in hopes of giving them time to play in the workshop and envision use in the classroom.
I sing in praise of the 20 teachers in the session because, despite emails back two weeks and urges from me to the administration and tech person to check out the sites and unblock the filter, there were hurdles galore.
First, the filter was full-on, blocking most of the sites that we intended to use. I had to run through the halls and offices to find the administrator, who had to call the tech support person (in other building) and then finally, most of what I needed was unblocked.
Then, the browsers on the computers in the lab where we were located were not updated and had no Adobe Flash software. You realize when Flash is not there how important it is to so many sites (maybe Steve Jobs has a point!). And of course, I did not have any administrative access so I could not load Flash myself. Yikes! I asked for patience from the group of teachers and began tinkering around and came up with a solution that worked, but was confusing: we needed to use one browser (Firefox) for one site, and then another browser (Internet Explorer) for the other sites.
For many of us, this does not seem like a big deal.
But I know from experience that the last thing you want is for teachers who little technology background to have too many hurdles. It just reinforces in their heads how difficult it is to do this “tech stuff” and they quit before they start.
That didn’t happen.
This group of teachers was game for whatever I threw out there and were ready to play and explore. I bounced around a lot, helping navigate browsers and websites, but it worked. No one stormed out of the room. No one threw up their hands in frustration. They stuck with it, and soon, they were putting up notes on a Wallwisher, making a webcomic and creating a Glog.
We’ll see how it goes today …
Peace (in the sharing),
Kevin
Workshop: Free Tech Tools
I’m heading into a nearby school district this afternoon and tomorrow afternoon to work with two groups of teachers on a technology workshop with the theme of “no cost technology for teachers.” I’ve been trying to figure out the best game plan (one day will be mostly middle school teachers and one day, mostly lower elementary).
Here is what I decided. First of all, it’s not going to be me, talking. It’s going to them, playing. I just hope and cross my fingers that the tech people at this school have not gone overboard with their filter, although I have been assured that the filter will be turned off for my workshops. We’ll see.
I am going to:
- start with Wallwisher and get them brainstorming and sharing out ways they already use some technology in the classroom. These folks are from different subject areas.
- move to using Make Beliefs Comix for some webcomic creation, which is always a hit in workshops because the site is just so darn easy to use and requires no registration. This and Wallwisher are tools they could use tomorrow, if they wanted.
- shift to Glogster for the middle school teachers (this is where I worry about filter issues) and have them create a glog about a favorite book or author. I have set up accounts for them under my classroom.
- for the lower elementary teachers, instead of Glogster, I am going to have them use Storybird for picture book story creations. This seems like it would be more useful for them than Glogster.
- I have also created a list of “extension activities” that includes PicLits, Search Story Creator, and Voicethread.
We’ll see how it goes. The workshop will end with another visit to Wallwisher for some virtual exit slips on what technology they can envision using with their students.
Peace (in the sharing),
Kevin
Shake Out Some Ink
Yesterday, I had this phrase bouncing around in my head — Shake out some ink — and I decided to try to use it as a frame to write a song about writing, about composing. There aren’t enough songs out there about the art of writing. I used a software called Super Duper Music Looper to generate the music, and then I used Audacity to record the voice.
This is the result:
Shake Out Some Ink
Just watch me now — I’m gonna grab my pen
gonna shake out some ink — gonna write it down again
I can feel the flow going — it’s all inside of my head
where the words keep dancing — all around me instead
So, you say you got a story — well, I can relate,
‘cause my brain keeps working — though it’s always getting late
when the deadline looms like an alarm clock ticking
this story’s unfolding and I never stop thinking
of the time, I found a rhyme,
and the words flowed through me,
and I’m wasn’t even trying,
I’m a writer of stories
I compose all the time
I’ve got a novel in the making
here in my mind.
Sometimes, you need the quiet — just find a place to be alone
so you sit there the silence and let the stories unfold,
all the phrases, all the talking, all the people in the setting,
unravel out the action and never stop thinking
of the time, you found a rhyme,
and the words flowed through you,
and you’re not even trying,
You’re a writer of stories
You compose all the time
You’ve got a novel in the making
there in your mind.
So, you say you hit a wall — there’s a place where you stopped
and you thought you saw it all but now you’re ready to drop
the whole thing, let me tell ya, you need to keep going
if you wanna invent, then this is composing, so
find the time, mine the rhyme,
find the words flowing through you,
and I’m not even lying,
You’re a writer of stories
You compose all the time
You’ve got a novel in the making
buried there in your mind.
Peace (in the songs),
Kevin
The “App for That” Comic, together
I finally pulled all four parts of my App for That comic together onto one website, so that all the pieces flow.
Visit the App for That Comic Website
Peace (in the funny bone),
Kevin
Reviewing: To Teach- The Journey, in Comics
Wow.
I finally had some time to read through To Teach: the journey, in comics by William Ayers and illustrated by Ryan Alexander-Tanner and I have to say that Ayers message and Alexander-Tanner’s illustrations meshed so powerfully together that I decided I need to pass this book along to my student teacher (who left the other day as her time with me ended).
In this graphic interpretation of Ayer’s reflections on being a kindergarten teacher (which were told prior in a book format), but also his philosophies of teaching in general (particularly the conflict between inquiry-based teaching and standardized curriculum) hit right home with me. I could have lived on Ayers’ words alone, but by bringing the medium of comics into the story, the entire thing just came to life perfectly.
Ayers gives us stories of real teachers, and real students, making discoveries around learning and he doesn’t sugarcoat the hard work of teaching, either, noting that the teacher is often learning alongside their students, even in the younger grades.
“The intellectual challenge of teaching involves becoming a student of your students, unlocking the wisdom in the room, and joining together on a journey of discovery and surprise. The ethical demand is to see each student as a 3-dimensional creature, much like yourself, and an unshakable faith in the irreducible and incalculable value of every human being.”
Tell me that is not a powerful statement! Again and again, Ayers relates how he, and how we, must try to resist the pigeon-holing of our students as special needs or labeling them with ADD when what we are seeing is the curiosity, the inquiry and the impact of home life on school life.
The comic illustrations here are modeled on Scott McCloud’s work and the images are not just for fun. Alexander-Tanner effectively uses the medium to move from the concrete to the abstract, using visual representations of teaching and education, along with fine doses of humor, to help move Ayers’ writing along. The comic element is not just a throw-away device here — not just some selling point in this time of graphic novels — but a real addition to the storytelling.
I highly recommend this book.
Peace (in the book),
Kevin
Winning Projects of the Digital Media and Learning Competition
These 10 projects who came out on top of the Digital Media and Learning Competition (sponsored through HASTAC and the MacArthur Foundation) are interesting and really do seem to push the possibilities of learning in the digital environment.
• Conservation Connection: Using webcasting, video blogging and social networking sites, this project connects kids from Chicago’s West Side with kids in Fiji to work together to protect Fijian coral reefs.
• Mobile Action Lab: Combining the expertise of social entrepreneurs and technologists and the knowledge and ideas of Oakland, Calif.-based teens, this project helps develop mobile phone applications that serve Oakland communities.
• Click! The Online Spy School: Designed to encourage girls’ engagement in the sciences, Click!Online is a web-based, augmented reality game for teen girls to solve mysteries in biomedical science, environmental protection and expressive technology.
• Ecobugs: An augmented reality game that creates, collects and monitors the health of virtual bugs and their habitats.
• Fab@School: Introduces students to digital fabrication, mathematical modeling and engineering using a low-cost open-source system. Kids invent and design their own creations from mind’s eye to physical form.
• Metrovoice: Youth write and produce videos on an issue on their block or neighborhood. The videos are geocoded and play on city buses as the bus passes through the featured neighborhood.
• Nox No More: Enables kids to upload GPS-gathered data that trace their movements for a week—did they take the bus to their friend’s house or have mom drive? The data is converted to points, and kids compete to be most environmentally conscious.
• Hole-in-the-Wall: Installed in small kiosks on sidewalks, these computer stations offer games in a variety of subjects and skills to kids in Bhutan, Cambodia, India and elsewhere, bringing technology to underserved areas.
• Scratch: This simple programming tool allows kids up to age 8 to create their own games, stories, animations and simulations. The online network allows kids to collaborate on designs, offer suggestions to others, and learn from others as they develop as creative thinkers.
• Youth AppLab: This program supplements D.C. teens’ computer science classes with an after-school opportunity to create phone apps for the Droid. Winners of the best apps are offered internships with technology startups in the D.C. area.
Peace (in the learning),
Kevin