The Teacher Toolbox

I recently took my son to a ICT in Education Conference where he led a group of
teachers through three half hour workshops on video game making, stop motion
animation & movie making using a Flip video.

Whilst I had a few reservations about this the experience turned out to be a
wonderful learning opportunity. Real audience, sense of purpose, connection,
planning, rehearsal, networking, value of his talents and soooooo much more.



He received some great feedback from those that attended his session and here is an email
a delegate sent to his school and to me.

Good Morning

I attended a National Computer Conference ( ELH ) in Lorne over the weekend. I am from a
school in Perth Western Australia. There were 250 professional teachers and technicians
attending from around the country. The conference is a well known and very highly regarded
by professionals in the area on Education and IT. One of your students Samuel Bruce was
co-presenting with his father Adrian. The presentation went all day from 9.30 - 5 pm
and he was inspirational. Samuel demonstrated programs and assisted IT teachers in many
of the applications he has used and mastered. I was in awe as this young boy spoke with
authority and passion about his presentations. He and his father's presentation was one
of the best at the conference sessions and I would love it if you could commend Samuel
with a merit award or commendation in front of his peers.

It made me reflect on my own teaching and how I can accommodate children like Samuel
in my class sessions when they have far better skills than I have and can teach us
all so much.

Thank you for allowing him to attend. 

Mrs Jo P

Mr 10 (Samuel) will be co-presenting with me at Expanding Learning Horizons next week and today he has been working flat out on his parts of the workshop. Amongst other things he will be taking a group of teachers outside with their laptops, a flip video and a couple of puppets.

Last week one of his mates came over and they filmed this little gem. Do drop by Samuel’s blog and leave him a little ‘comment love’ – Hints, tips & tricks appreciated.

cheers

Adrian

I believe that there are only a few things that are certain in the lives of people and one of those things is that they will have to solve problems.

In this activity the students could only animate their solutions once they had solved the tangram puzzles.

I was cleaning up some files today and came across this gem. Shame to leave it on my hard drive. Well done lads it still brings a chuckle!!!

I have become very fond of using puppets as an introduction to movie making. The students have to organise the creation of their puppets, they have to write the  script, learn the camera, explore the software, resolve conflict, discuss production values, entertain, etc, etc.

Here is a rather open ended task that you are welcome to have a go at.

‘In groups of three you must create a 2 minute video to showcase to the world how intelligent, articulate and creative you are. The video must not be contrary to school ethos and you are only able to use puppets. What will you do?’

NB This is a repost of an earlier article as I’ve been experiencing some difficulty streaming from Teacher Tube.

Fractals is an aspect of maths that can inspire awe and wonder in the students. This is a piece of ecphrastic poetry (where you ask questions of artwork) based on fractal geometry. The students had to ‘combine’ Fractalus, Photostory 3, Ejay and poetry. See what you think.

Adrian

PS My Twitter Network sent me a collection of ideas for using Photostory 3. See if any of these ideas work for you and your class.

I’ve been looking for a piece of free time lapse photography software for a while now and finally found Perios. Perios is a tiny download and very, very simple to use.

For my first movie I set the software to record one frame every five seconds but I feel I need to continue experimenting for improved results. Once the software captures all the still pics you have to export them as a movie file. I then added all the credits and music in Movie Maker. Too easy!!!

The only hassle I had with the software was trying to get it to work with a webcam. I eventually just stuck with the built in camera in my laptop.

Possible Time Lapse Subjects

- flower blooming / plant growth
- spider spinning a web
- tracking shadow movement throughout a day
- artwork being made
- a classic game of chess
- the classroom working
- lego construction
- snail race
- decomposing fruit
- butterfly hatching
- traffic outside your window for surveys
- is the movement of the lunchtime crowd fractal?
- fill up and ant farm and record tunnel creation
- growing of crystals
- your fish tank
- clouds across the sky / storm coming

Feel free to add possible uses to my list.

Adrian

PS Just did a search for time lapse on You Tube and had a chuckle at this Nascargot

Hi All,

For the last few weeks the blogs have been rather quiet as the kids really got into this rather open ended task I set them…

‘You must create a 2 minute video to showcase to the world how intelligent, articulate and creative you are. The video must not be contrary to school ethos and you are only able to use puppets.. What will you do?’

Needless to say we learnt HEAPS and I’m sure we’ll up the production values and refine the process over the coming weeks.

Feel free to leave a comment for these budding poets on their blog.

cheers

Adrian

At school this week one of my classes has a puppet show due for me that we are going to upload to TeacherTube and then embed that video into our blogs.

Here is my first go. My son made this Photostory after attending his aunty’s wedding almost 2 years ago. I often show this video as an example of what children can do with a bit of help and encouragement.

I’m fond of the saying, ‘Teach them how to do it, expect them to do it and they will’.

cheers

Adrian

I must admit I’m a ‘newbie’ to Skype but in the last couple of weeks have found it invaluable. I’m currently doing some work on the Gold Coast in Queensland and used it to have a video conference with my son.

A couple of weeks ago I gave an interview on the Virtual Staffroom podcast and this morning I used it to hook up with a Kiwi E-Learning Adviser Rochelle Jensen. We discussed all sorts of stuff including: pedagogy, professional development ideas, time management, goal setting, creative processes and (on a much lighter note) the role of red wine in directing the life long learner hehehehe

A little later in the year I’ll be using Skype to do a keynote for a group of teachers in Perth. I’m looking forward to the challenges that this will present immensely.

cheers

Adrian

Oh, and I guess my point is that Skype is a great tool and I’m sure you can find heaps of uses for it both personally and professionally.