Trial & Error...

I would like to tell you the tale of my digital storytelling experience with Vuvox...

Vuvox has three different options to create your digital story express, collage, and studio. I chose collage for my first endeavor.

The free multimedia site allows anyone to create interactive stories from their photos, videos, text and audio clips. My first was pretty basic, only editing the images however will develop my Vuvox skills using the extra editing options. The editing features include;

•  Image Cut-out and Masking tools

•  Layer positioning and Compositing

•  Interactive 'Hot-spots', providing links to media, text or other websites

•  Ability to add rich media details and Text and Soundtrack

The collage function enables you to publish, embed, and syndicate into websites, blogs and social networking sites to share your creation... to a wider audience. There is a function to adjust privacy settings if you don't want to share. I did have some troubles with aligning the audio and visual. I found that you should avoid running the mouse over the control bar (at the bottom) whilst playing. A lot of trial and error...

All in all I enjoyed the time creating my first Vuvox story, it was created when asked who was an inspiration in my life… I hope you enjoy my first (of hopefully many) digital stories.

As a pre-service teacher, I look forward to utilizing digital stories in the classroom.

E-Learning Resource Extravaganza!!!

This week we held a 'mini expo' conference to share all the great e-learning resources that are available to us as teachers, to help us navigate through the maze of e-resources...

The conference was designed to entice the participants to look up our online reviews however, a lot of what was shared in the conference fulfilled my queries about the programs available and felt that there was no need to go and look up the reviews as the reasons why the resources are (or aren’t) meaningful was already shared…

Some of the programs or websites that I think looked promising to use in the classroom are:

Abracadabra             

SignPost Maths         

smART Kids          

Operation Neptune

Wonderful Words

Mendel’s Magic Maths Market

Mathletics

Reading Eggs

A plus to most of these programs available are that they are free. It is debatable on how meaningful the learning experience is when using some of them but I think that the programs are headed in the right direction...

All in all it was a good experience to get us pre-service teachers in analyzing the meaningfulness of programs and sharing our findings. As well as looking at teaching approaches that allow students to be in control of learning and us teachers…’the guides on the side’!!!

Thank you to all those involved in our mini conference...

and Flickrcc for the imagery.

Neverending story' 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/24183489@N00/252757784

Once Upon a Digital Time....

In a digital land not so far away...after all these readings about digital storytelling it made me think, the pen may be mightier than the sword but is the computer is mightier than the pen? I believe when it comes to these short, but expressive mediums for expression that are known as digital story telling technology truly is mightier. They also portrays that pictures ARE truly stronger than words and allows for creativity... Thus, as I make my way down the path of life long learning, I have found this medium which has emerged as an engaging and thought invoking experience (not without it hurdles, which have been successfully conquered). I feel that my experience will be replicated and continued in myself and all the storytellers that are my students. These multimedia sonnets, as Daniel Meadows refers to them as, really allows for exploration of ideas, the unknown and share our findings with not only our peers but with our vast audience over the net.

I really enjoyed reading ‘Making History Come Alive’ and was excited to think of the endless possibilities for this medium in my classroom. It enables students from any age, or ability to think deeply and expand upon and articulate their understandings. Able to integrate across the curriculum, digital story activities provide are the ultimate meaningful learning experience… that would make Jonassen a very happy man.

And so the digital story, the student and the meaningfulness of learning, all lived happily ever after…


                                                       ~The End~

Thanks to...

Daniel Meadows. Photobus. Retrieved from http://www.photobus.co.uk/

Jonassen, D., et al. 2008, Meaningful Learning with Technology, 3rd edn, Pearson Education, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey, pp.1-12. Retrieved from; https://online.uts.edu.au/webapps/lobj-journal-bb_bb60/blog/012233/_530552_1/Home?cmd=GetImage&systemId=Jonassen08__0.pdf

Levin, H. (2003). Making history come alive: Students interview Holocaust survivors and publish their stories. Learning and Leading with Technology 31(3), 22-27.. Retrieved from the Learning & Leading with Technology website; http://www.usq.edu.au/course/material/edu5472/resources/files/ll31322.pdf

And Flickrcc for the images, thanks again...

Image: 'Bussana vecchia' 
http://www.flickr.com/photos/29635150@N00/2320388358

Image: 'I Want to Live' 
http://www.flickr.com/photos/86603835@N00/36362014

Wonderful World of the Web... 2.0

Little did I realize that the internet had evolved right in front of my eyes from read only to a read/write function… it wasn’t only until my eyes were opened in our tutorial that I know realize that our options as teachers are boundless…   

We need to rethink our roles as teachers and as Richardson suggests, break free from the traditional teaching pedagogies and jump into the e-resources that await us… Not only do children read and write now but also they are editors and collaborators… Students can create, collaborate, publish, and make connections with the wide audience of our online community. The inevitability of technology in the classroom is real and as teachers we need to ‘download’ a new methodologies to teaching, but how? ‘Let’s Google it’!!

Attributes

Will Richardson (2006). The Educator's Guide to the Read/Write Web. Retrieved on the 15th April 2011.

Notinwords. Web 2.0. Retrieved on the 1st April 2011.

Digital Castles

 Digital Sandcastles

My favorite part of going to the beach as a child (and even still today) was always exploring rock pools and building sand castles… little did I know that I was learning in the moment. I vividly remember my Pop telling me about all the pipi’s and other seashore creatures. I remember this because it was such an engaging experience and now is engrained in my memory.

After reading Digital Sandcastles by Idit Harel (2003) who uses the constructionist analogy of the building sandcastles to learn has allowed me to deepen my understandings of the theory, which was established by Seymour Papert. This constructioNist theory (stemmed from the constructiVist theory, where is where ) is when children learn whilst doing and creating which comes about un-expectantly. The only problem with the engaging experiences of the beach is that it doesn’t last, washed away along with the sandcastles and cannot be added to, reflected upon or extended.

Harel continues by recommending that in order to harness this natural learning experience in the classroom, we should do so through the use of computers.

Unlike the sandcastles of our yesteryears that have washed away many moons ago, the use of computers “offers a wide-open learning environment in which children can explore the world, express themselves, save their creations, revise and refine them over time and exchange ideas in ways that were simply not possible in the past”.

My own beliefs about being a life-long learner are resonated with one of the great artists, Picasso: “when did you learn to paint? How did you learn to be so creative?” Picasso- “You and I started learning at the same age, and I learnt the same way that you did. The difference is that you stopped.”

The websites linked to the literature do allow children to be in control of their learning, and I think we are very lucky to have all the resources available to us and we can really provide in the moment and meaningful learning experiences for our students!

Harel, I. (2003). Sand castles go digital. Retrieved August 4, 2006 at: http://www.mamamedia.com/areas/grownups/new/21_learning/sand_castles.html

Image: '"Castle Beach" – Singapore'

http://www.flickr.com/photos/84493444@N00/4268489129