Handheld collaborative Doc

This week we were given the task to take one aspect of using an IPhone or IPad and look at how you can incorporate this into either your personal learning or university collaborative learning. We each had to pick a different area to write about and enter it into the collaborative Google Doc. Here is mine.

IPad collaborative lecture (Lyndsay Dunn)

For this collaborative task I chose to look at the IPad and how it can be incorporated into a collaborative lecture. I selected this area to reflect on as I have used the IPad in lecturers previously and have an understanding of how they can be used, but using them as part of a collaborative lecture is something I needed to research further.

There seem to be many different advantages of using the IPad in this way which could enhance learning. The first advantage that came to mind was using the device, so that lecturers can receive instantaneous or real time feedback. Tools such as Poll4 can be used for simple questions or to elicit deeper responses and are quick and easy to set up. Google Docs is another collaborative tool, which can be used to create and edit documents in real time by a number of people. I believe that by having this anonymous exchange of information, alongside verbal, can encourage interactions from the students. Anonymity may encourage more students to have a voice and be supported in their learning. Many students have answers to the questions being asked or have extra information, but never put their hands up. Lecture theatres can be a daunting place for some people.

An app I would like to discuss is Dropbox. Dropbox is a web based file hosting service, which enables users to access and share files on different devices using ‘cloud computing’. Using this app, lecturers could drop their power points into the Dropbox or students could download them from Blackboard dropping them into their own Dropbox. The IPad can then be used in lectures to pick up the power point and add notes. Students can not only add their own notes, but the lecturer may wish to add extra notes as well to enhance the lecture, personalising the learning to the particular class.

Good Reader used along with Dropbox is another tool to encourage collaboration. This app allows pdf files to be annotated, highlighted and drawn upon. Once this has been done the document can be shared among the lecture theatre. E books can also be highlighted and shared in a similar way giving access to more information.

There seems to be many advantages in incorporating the IPad into a collaborative lecture and am aware I’m just scratching the surface, however, it is important to look at the negative side too. As with most technology once you get used to using it it’s hard to live without. It is inevitable that at some point there will be some sort of fault and for this reason it is important to have a backup plan.

Changing the structure can be a good thing, however, it also means that time and effort must go into training and figuring out how to use everything. This will be easy for some people, but others may struggle or lack of time may be an issue and let’s not forget the people who don’t like change.  

Using new technology is always exciting, but I feel that some may become distracted and lose focus on the lecture. Students could be looking at their Face book, checking their email.... instead of paying attention to the lecture and it could go undetected. Some students may be one step behind and miss out on important information while they are concentrating on something else.

There are always two sides to a story, but I think in this case the positive would outweigh the negatives. There are always going to be people who don’t want to pay attention in lectures, however, people need to take responsibility for their own learning.     


 

Movie Making, the next step...

A new week and a fresh start to editing our creation! Tamar and I were confident and ready to finish it. We were clear where we were going next and what needed to be done. The images were edited and synched how we wanted and it was time to organise our many sound clips. Our clips, which were all recorded in Audacity, needed to be converted into MP3 format, saved then imported into WMM (windows Movie maker) where we could then edit more, if required and organise where they were to appear in our movie. Reading this back there seems to be so many extra steps! Why does everything need to be converted by different tools? There must be a simpler or more efficient way to do this. If anyone knows of a different or better way to do this I would be interested to hear. We followed the steps making sure to save as we went but for some reason, which I have failed to work out, we lost our work about 4 times. Each separate occasion occurred later on in the process, which meant we had more to lose. We wondered if we were asking the computer to carry out too much at once?   

Once our sound clips were added, the transitions set and the captions written we nervously watched the movie. Something was not right, it was lacking something and seemed a bit dull. We decided to have some backing music running throughout, so there were no gaps in sound. We found a track and thought it would be easy to add in but WMM only allows for two levels of sound. We had muted the sound from the camera as it was just background noise and had imported in all the speech, so we had used the two options. Feeling frustrated  we decided to play the movie out loud into a microphone while recording using audacity. We used Fetchmp3 to convert our backing track and import to audacity. Once we were happy with the levels we combined the tracks into one, converted, saved and imported it back into WMM.

THE FINISHED ARTICLE HOORAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!

Although this has been a frustrating experience, on reflection I am glad it didn't go smoothly. I feel I have learnt a huge amount of technical skills and realise that yes, ICT doesn't always go to plan, but the important part to take from that is to accept it may not work, find a solution or alternative and move forward. Problem solving.

In the primary classroom I still stick to the decision that this level of movie making should be kept to the upper stages as long as they have had previous experiences to build on or step by step instruction. I do feel it would be a positive experience for children to go that step further from just capturing images to creating a movie, but it doesn't have to be taken quite to the same level as we did unless the  children are ready. 

Movie Making

This week we started making our movie. I have to admit that I wasn't as excited about this as I had been about other tasks. I was however aware of the importance of this task as film is an integral part of literacy. Bazalgette (2010) states that “film alongside other textual forms helps children to understand the place of print literacy within the wider world of communications, and to understand the different kinds of texts." I also feel that allowing children to create their own film will deepen this learning and understanding taking it one step further.  

We were prepared for filming with our script and storyboard. Just like the animation we had kept our story simple to help us achieve an end product. The movie was to be a group effort where Tamar and I joined up with two others from the modern foreign language elective. I am unsure why we have had to do this as I cannot see benefits for either party. We have had to alter our themes to tie in with theirs' We had organised that Tamar and I would focus on filming while the other two would focus on recording the sound, as part of it was to be in French. On the day the person who wanted to write the script was off so we had to re-write it. We felt it would be unfair to leave one person to record the sound, especially as they were not part of the ICT elective. We lost time but still managed to complete the filing. If I were to do this with a class I would collect in all the work at the end of each lesson so that if someone was off nothing would be lost. 

Filming was quick and easy. as we had planned each scene on our story board. Once back in the university it was time to check our script and record it. We used audacity to record it in lots of little sections as we thought this would make it easy to play around with.

The next session was meant to be for editing but unfortunately we were unable to get as much done as we had hoped. Before we could start editing the MP4 files needed to be converted into WMP files. We had been given the website ZamZar to do this. It took a while to convert all our file and when we played them through we realised all the files were corrupt. We then spent a ridiculous amount of time trying to download or find a different programme that would do this for us. This sort of setback only helps to remind us that as teachers we must be prepared and have the correct tools for the job. Although this was a fairly big setback for us it would be an even bigger problem in the primary classroom.

Once all our clips had been successfully converted we used Windows Movie Maker to edit. I found this really easy and fast to use. I would have no worries using this in middle and upper stages of the primary but would stick to Digital Blue for the younger children. We were pleased with our edited images and began to start working on our sound clips. I knew that the sound clips needed to be converted to MP3 files and that audacity would do this for us, however it did not seem to be working. Feeling a little fed up and with not much time left we decided to call it a day. We looked for advice later and found it must have been a problem with that particular computer and so feel ready and confident to try again on Monday. I will keep you informed.