Voices of the world

This week I was introduced to Voices of the World and was asked to create a task for the month of March. I had heard about the network from my tutor, but was unsure what it was all about. I took the time to navigate my way around the website to familiarise myself with the concept. The website is only for educators and was created by Sharon Tonner.The aim being to connect children from all over the world using their voices instead of only the written word, such as letters and emails. The network was also designed to help children show an appreciation of different languages, accents and dialect, however, I feel it has achieved much more than just these aims. I feel the network brings us closer to achieving the goal of becoming global citizens. Children can have the opportunity to learn about the world they live in, where different countries are situated, different cultures, how other children of similar ages live and relate this to their own world.

A task is released at the beginning of each month with all contributions completed by the end of the month. Contributions are in the form of embedded code which are sent to a site 'administrator' who then places them on the VOTW wikispace. The VOTW wikispace for that month is not released until the last day of the month, so that all members can look and view all contributions from around the world. This allows the children to view everyone's work and hopefully appreciate the differences in culture.

There are two websites for Voices of the World. One is the children's and the other is the teachers'. The children's website has a brief outline of the task for that month, usually with an example. This is also where the children's work is displayed. (They can not only see their own work, but everyone else's from all over the world.) The teachers' website has a more detailed step by step guide to the task, so that regardless of their ICT abilities they should be able to manage and guide their class. They can also use this site as a means of communication if they need help, want to share their success or would like to make more links with other schools. 

Our group was given the chance to create the task for March. We decided it would be a good idea to use the song 'Happy Birthday to You' as our topic as it is sung all over the world. We felt this would be interesting for the children to share the different ways this can be sung and what it sounds like compared to our version. There was a vast number of different tools available online for us to use. It was almost overwhelming. We wanted to use something we had not used before, so that we could further our learning, but it was quite difficult to sift through and work out the different features. Time always seems to be a factor and it would be good to be able to sit and 'play' with different tools to increase awareness of what is available, but unfortunately it is always limited both in class and at home. I will just have to chip away at this sort of thing with any spare moments, although, now that I have the use of an Ipad surely this will make it easier :)  (more about the Ipad to follow, I promise). Our group decided to use Anamoto which is a free programme that combines your images, music and video clips into a small production a little bit like a movie trailer. We found it really easy to use with simple step by step instructions. We made an example using birthday images that were already available on the site. For the music, we found a YouTube video of 'Happy Birthday' and converted the soundtrack into mp3 using Fetchmp3. We then uploaded the mp3 file to Animoto which then combined everything to create our example.

  

Although I am pleased with the result I feel it maybe should have been modeled as we are asking the children to sing and use their own pictures (no children in pictures) and drawings, however if we had sung this may have put them off for life.

Once our creation was complete we made simple step by step instructions for the teachers. As we wanted the children's voices on their versions we told them to use Audacity to record their version and export to mp3 format.

I think that using VOTW is a brilliant way to communicate with different schools and learn about different countries in relation to your own. I was aprehensive at the start, as I thought it would be more hassle than it is worth. I can now see the benefits and would consider doing this when I have my own class.

Animation

Today I created a short animation with one other member of my class. We had previously decided on our cross curricular topic of healthy living. We knew we would be creating a movie on healthy eating later in the elective so, decided to use exercise as our focus for the animation. We wanted to keep it simple as we had less than three hours to create the story, character, to film, edit, add sound and text and upload to YouTube. We decided to use the character of a bear and make an exercise video. Before the class I was a little apprehensive as I had attempted an animation in B.Ed1 which had been unsuccessful. I think this was down to time restrictions and then in our one last push to finish we ended up losing some of our scenes. This time, however, everything worked out well. I was conscious of the time so stayed focused and kept it simple. We used Digital Blue to create our movie. The equipment is easy to use and I would feel confident using it with a class. We quickly remembered the basics to filming and worked through the different stages of our exercise video. We wanted to use a specific song for the animation which we found on YouTube. We then used Fetch to convert the track into MP3 file format. We tried to add our track to Digital Blue but were unable to do so and had to move over to Windows Movie Maker. Although this was slightly irritating at the time I am pleased now as I can use both programmes. We added our track finding the section we wanted to use and fading the music in/out to sound more professional. Finally we added text and uploaded our animation onto YouTube. It was a proud moment.

The task was supposed to be collaborative where we would write the script then pass it onto the next group, who would create the characters and so on until the story came back to the original group to film. I think this is a good idea and would definitely use it with a class, but am glad we did not have to do that today. I do not think we had enough time to do this all in one session and would not have had the opportunity to get to know the programmes. If I were to use this with a class I would split it up into different lessons, so the story boarding would be one, designing the characters would be the next...

All in all I really enjoyed today and am looking forward to using my new found skills in my teaching practice.

See animation below.

What is a blog?

When I heard I would be creating a blog I wanted to find out exactly what one is and what it is used for. I started by watching a really simple YouTube clip called Blogs in Plain English. I found this very helpful as it provided me with the basic knowledge I needed to start with. Using my new found skills, I have embedded the clip here for your viewing.

Richardson (2009) states that a blog "is an easily created, easily updateable website that allows an author (or authors) to publish instantly to the Internet from any Internet connection". I find the easy exchange of information and opinions really fascinating. People can share ideas, information and resources with an interested audience, who can in turn comment and share their opinions on the subject. For me, creating this blog is providing me with the chance to think about my learning, take it further with research and reflect. All this, I hope, will deepen my learning giving me a strong foundation of which to build upon.

Now that I have learned the basics of blogging, I can start to see the educational values. Blogging can promote critical and analytical thinking giving students the opportunity of reflection. They can also promote creativity, critical and collaborative skills as students have free reign to design and create their own content. Blogs can cover any topic and are an extension of the classroom walls where pupils can collaborate. They can also be used as an archive to record students work as they proggress through the education system. I feel this would be a useful tool to see how far you or a particular child has come. Another advantage to using blogs in school is that they can be suited to different learning styles and provide opportunity for everyone, no matter how shy, to share their ideas in writing. Finally I believe that blogs can teach children the literacies they will need in an ever expanding world of information technology.

I have provided some links to examples of different blogs.

• The High School of Dundee
• Voices of The World
• Tecnoteach

The biggest advantage of blogging for me is that it is helping me to reflect on my learning. Every time I write a new post I have to really think about what I have learned, what my thoughts are on the subject and put it into words. All this encourages deep learning. 

ICT so far

In the past I have really enjoyed the ICT inputs at Dundee university, but would not necessarily have the confidence to try some of the different ideas out in my own teaching practice. I selected the ICT elective this year to help build on my knowledge which I hope, will in turn provide me with the techniques and confidence to try some of the activities with a class. I also feel that ICT is such a huge part of our lives and this will only increase in the future. It is used not only for entertainment purposes, but in education, work and to enhance the quality of life. For these reasons I believe it is important to keep up to date with technology and provide children and young people "with the learning and employability skills required for the 21st century" LTS (2008) Technologies cover paper. The role of ICT at the moment is to create, transmit, store, display, share or exchange information. This includes media, telecommunications, computer hardware, software and things like video conferencing, email, blogs and social networking sites.

My previous learning in ICT includes making an avatar for myself, as tutors have always advised us to protect our identity. I have added two avatars onto my blog so far. On the left is my first avatar, Dopple Me and on the right is a talking avatar also known as a Voki. I have also touched on audio programmes, animation, games based learning, handheld learning and am looking forward to studying all of these topics and more throughout the course of the elective.