A quick walk to the bridge turns into a near epic adventure! – created at http://animoto.com.
… that I would ever be taking photos and videos on a digital camera, importing the files onto my computer, then uploading them to Animoto.com, mixing them with a sound file, creating a video, transferring it to YouTube.com, adding a link to it on my WordPress Blog, sharing it on Facebook.com, watching it later on my iTouch… and, guess what? It was almost easier to do than typing out all these steps!!! Our students are doing this every day, without all of this thought… AMAZING! A quick walk to the bridge turns into a near epic adventure! – created at http://animoto.com.
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I have had a truly informative and insightful day today. There are two different Blogs that struck a chord with me today, written by two members of my PLN, @HeidiSiwak and @Grade1. I had shared, in a comment, my belief that classroom management issues must be virtually non-existent. This was confirmed. The other Blog’s author stated the same thing.
Being an occasional teacher, I have a lot of opportunity to see what engages students and what does not. The times I have seen the students to be the most involved are when they are using technology. A class of grade 5/6 gifted students were so into the bridge-building stimulation game they were using that they bargained with their French teacher to let them keep at it at the end of the allotted time period. She agreed, on the condition that if they speak, it be in French. The result being that, not only were they learning about structures, they were speaking and learning the vocabulary in French. Just, WOW! In every case that I have seen students involved in meaningful technological projects, they have been engaged. I had to kick another grade 6 class out of the computer lab at break time. They were busy creating comic strips on BitComet. It is truly amazing to see such student involvement. Isn’t it time that students LOVE going to school; that school becomes a place where they are challenged, where they can create and impact the world that they live in? It seems to me that we have finally found the answer to keeping kids engaged, thus successful. So why so much opposition? Our students will be knowledgeable, functioning, critical consumers when we release them to the “real world”. Is this not the goal of Education? Maybe, not everyone’s, but it is definitely mine. Wow! Talk about bumping it up! In December, the organizers of TED challenged the ad industry “to create ads that people would like so much that they’d like to share some with their friends.” And, I think they got the message that they have to do better to be better. Watch here. We all have to be like the people at TED and let them know that we won’t put up with their worthless dribble anymore. To quote Twisted Sister, “No! We're not gonna take it! No! We ain't gonna take it, anymore!" Sure, we’ve accepted that virtually EVERYTHING around us is trying to sell us SOMETHING, but now we are insisting that the ads are meaningful; that they don’t make us feel more stupid for having seen them. And, maybe, the ads might even make us feel more intelligent by teaching us something, making us think, enlightening us, or at the very least, entertaining us. “It time,” quoting Rage Against the Machine, “yo, we gotta take the power back!” If we don’t like your ad, we’ll tune in to someone else’s ad. When I watched these videos, I was blown away by the creativity and meaning behind some of these ads. Some would be great in the classrooms for those inferring, predicting, visualization sort of lessons, and for critiquing media, and endless other uses. HERE’S A VIDEO I JUST MADE, CALLED “DUNDAS – VALLEY OF DREAMS” ANIMOTO IN 100-WORDS FOR A BRIEF SYNOPSIS. OR…ANIMOTO IN 500-WORDS FOR MORE DETAILS, AND… http://animoto.com/education/ to see how you can use it in the classroom. Just explore the site, already:) You can try it out making 30 second videos, and so can your students. I have gotten the yearly subscription for about $30 and I can make full length videos (10mb song limit). I am going to upgrade (I believe you can do this on a monthly basis)… to get better DVD quality images… I have recently gotten married and plan to have fun making wedding videos over Christmas break. A school I teach in often has used this program for a DVD yearbook and it looked FANTASTIC and the KIDS LOVED IT!!! Today’s kids think nothing of being ‘on-line’ most of their lives; computers and technology are second-nature. Many of our parents and even their parents have gotten on-board at varying paces. But, I fall somewhere in the middle. Though I have caught myself typing@yahoo.ca after being asked for just my name;) I suspect my lack of know-how in the organizational department of information has to do with the times I grew up, which are directly related to the advance of technology… The first computers I remember using were the good ol’ commodore 64s – with 64K of memory, I’ll have you know!!! Ready… Load, “Frogger”,8 and, voila….. I asked for Frogger and I got Frogger! (Note: I didn’t actually ask, I commanded. It was the times before fancy icons made know-how less important, and why when it all goes wrong, many of us don’t have a clue what to do, other than kick the darn thing!) And, of course, Atari… it’s hard to believe that these were cool graphics! From there… the first Nintendos, and Segas… I could play them and kick my brother’s friends’ butts because, unlike nowadays, you did not need an engineering degree to master the controls; could battle like a pro. Gone are the days where a computer filled a room (not that I remember those days). Now there is more memory and capabilities in smaller, more affordable devices and technology is for everybody, not an elite group. Technology is advancing at supersonic speeds. Today’s children know a lot of “stuff” about these here computers and technology in general. But, what they don’t know, and need guidance and TEACHING of (both from teachers AND parents) is critical literacy and problem solving skills. I am not getting into the debate whether all this technology is good or bad for our children because it is moot – it is here. We are in ‘full on’ technological times. Technology can be both beneficial and harmful, depending on how it is used. So, we teach them how to use it (or they teach us, perhaps). We teach them the same morals and ethics and values. We teach them manners. We teach them Maths and Language. We teach them Art and Music and Dance and Phys. Ed. and Geography and History. We teach them but we teach them differently. We adapt (albeit, some slower than others), we change and we grow with the young people we teach. We guide them. We learn with them how to find, sort and sift through all the information out there. We help them to be critical; to ask questions; to treat others (on- and off-line) as they wish to be treated. It’s all there, just as it was, but different, and if anything, it is more critical we communicate early to get them on the right path for success. AFTER ALL, THE JOBS OUR YOUTH WILL DO IN THE FUTURE, LIKELY DO NOT EVEN EXIST YET!!
I am an occasional teacher with the HWDSB. I am relatively new to participating in this Great Technological Revolution. I have done a few blogs on Posterous and glogs on Glogster, but I am enjoying the flexibility of Wordpress. I have learned to just dive right in. Even if you manage to mess stuff up, there is always help available (erm, right, PLN?).
At first, I was a Twitter skeptic, but as soon as I joined and became part of a PLN, the rest, as they say, was history:) I do find myself having to just turn it off and ignore it though, as there is just so much relevant information. You gotta get the balance right between Social Network and f2f connections! At least it qualifies the claims on our resumes that we are life-long learners! I have used the tagline, "Come Learn With Me..." to invite you into my learning process. I realize that we are all learning together in this Brave New World; in our Web 20, soon to be 30, classrooms (well, I don't have a classroom, I have always been learning and collecting ideas in other people's classrooms - my online experience is a natural extension of that, I guess). Anyway, my Blogs will be about Education in the 21st Century (no, duh, whose isn't?!). I also have an interest in Bullying and how Social Networks could and should be used for good. Since, I am rather fond of cooking, I may also sneak in some recipes, perhaps on a Recipe page (ooh, clever!). I will Blog about MY experiences with learning and share some of the neato resources I come across. I also welcome any suggestions for being a better blogger, as I am fairly new at this! Enjoy your quest for knowledge, and ALWAYS BUMP IT UP:) |
AuthorNicola Schneider, Occasional Teacher, 13 years Categories
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