Green Screen and Chatterpix.

Green Screen and ChatterPix today!

Chatter Pix

Green Screen 

Fantastic work today using Green Screens in Nicole and Jodie's class today.
Both classes had a similar idea of using Green Screen and adding the image to Chatter Pix.

Jodie's class had created a "Space Monster" using box creation and students took a photo of this monster in front of green cardboard therefore they could import a intergalactic background.

One of the space background examples 

From here we exported the image to the camera roll and added it to Chatter Pix. This allowed us to create a mouth on the "Space Monster" and the students spoke about what 3D shapes were used to create their box monster.

Pre primary and Year ones in Nicole's class have been studying Lions. Students superimposed themselves in front of a photo of a lion and made the lion speak, mentioning at least 3 facts they knew about lions.
As we were using the green screen application we realised that it doesn't work with the students green school uniforms, something to keep in mind.

One of the students on "Safari".(Image has been cropped for privacy policy)

Creating Reading Corner QR COdes

Hey all, after Jodie's amazing QR work lots of teachers are wanting to have a go at creating their own QR codes. I will post the instructions below, I suggest create a folder in Dropbox and shrae your QR codes so that everyone is creating links to different book. That way we can build the resource collection across the 3 schools.

Step 1. Find the Youtube clip you want to share. 

2. Copy the link and past it into the website : http://safeshare.tv/. This will remove the links to other videos on the side and comments section. 

3. Copy the URL from this site and paste it into the blank line on http://www.qrstuff.com/

4. Download the QR code and paste it in a document with a photo and heading. On the iPad PicCollage is an easy way to do this. 

Green Screen

We have all seen the movies where the magic of special effects and technology allows directors to superimpose their actors onto virtual backgrounds, place them over animated digital backdrops or transport them to a previously filmed location.

Now we can do the same in the classroom, this allows students to create presentations/ movies where they are placed in a foreign place or time.

On the iPads:

1. First you need to download the Green Screen App: $3.79

https://itunes.apple.com/au/app/green-screen-by-do-ink/id730091131?mt=8

This does not need to be installed on all iPads, as most schools only have one green screen( although a piece of material or cardboard pinned to a pin up board will work fine), a nominated iPad or Teachers device would work perfectly. 

2. Next step is to download an image or take footage for the background. 

3. Set up the iPad so that the Green material covers the whole screen (we used a beaker stand from the science room as a stand.)

4. In the top Line add your background image, in the middle line add your Green screen footage. 

5. Once you have filmed and checked your footage you can export it to the camera roll. Once it is in  the camera roll you are able to add it to iMovie and create titles and headings. 

21st Century Fluencies.

Ever read about 21st Century Fluencies? This is one area that I recommend all teachers investigate when they start working with me.

So, what is the 21st Century Fluency Project? Developed by Lee Crockett, Ian Jukes and Andrew Churches, this project "helps teachers instil values in their students that guide them towards creating a better world for themselves and for others."

With a changing education landscape, the skills that we are trying to develop in our students are also changing. And, of some of us teachers, we need to learn them too! These should be taught to across all years and across all year levels by all teachers.

The skills are broken down into 5 main fluencies:

1. Solution Fluency: In the past, students have been taught to solve problems in a show and tell manner (we show students the problem, and tell them how we got the answer), which has lead them to be dependent on us, rather than discovering it for themselves. However, we must begin to teach students to use their creativity to solve problems in real time.

2. Information Fluency: We live in an information abundant world, so we need to know how to access relevant information quickly and easily, analyse it for it's credibility and apply the knowledge to the situation at hand.

3. Creativity Fluency: This fluency refers to how artistic proficiency can add meaning through design, art, and storytelling.

4. Media Fluency: With communication moving beyond text, there is a need to be able to create media in a variety of different ways. There is also the need to be able to critically evaluate media for its message and desired outcome.

5. Collaboration Fluency: Learning in today’s digital world involves working with others. In today's digital world, there is now the ability to successfully work and interact with virtual and real partners.

This is encompassed by the idea that we want our students to become Global Digital Citizens, where they act responsibly in a real and online world, they show awareness of local and world events, protect themselves and have respect for the environment.

Want to know more? Explore https://globaldigitalcitizen.org

Sharing Students work with Parents

As the term comes to an end it might be nice to share some of the students work with parents. 

As the work is created in a variety of media, printing it out is no longer an option. 

I suggest that you create a student portfolio that piles together the semesters work. Book Creator is a perfect app to compile student work as it holds text, video, images and voice recordings. 

Your options exporting are:

ePub: This format allows the content to stay in a book format but can only be read on a device that can read ePubs. eg an iPad, Mac or through an ePub reader that can be downloaded. 

PDF: PDF will allow the content to be read on any device, however it doesn't allow for any multi media content. Export it as a PDF if you are wanting to print out the content. 

Video: Exporting the content as a video will allow the content to be viewed on any device. The book will automatically flick through the pages and play the Media content. 

Steps:

Once you have selected your format to export. 

- Select "Open in".

- Choose "Dropbox".

Once you have saved it to Dropbox, you can add it to students own files and create a link. 

Once you have copied your link you can share it with parents in a number of ways:

* Email the link directly

* Put the link into Bitly.com and shorten it so that it is easy to type into a web browser. 

* Create a QR code - This can be done through a variety of websites or APPs such as Qrafter. 

Work Flow for creating a QR Code on the iPads.

Work Flow of creating a QR Code:

Firstly create your video.
Today we are using Chatterpix to make our orange speak.

1. Once you have created your movie in any application you need to export it to the Camera Roll ( or you can export it straight to Dropbox if the application has that feature)

2. Open Dropbox - Add the video to dropbox

3. Click the "up arrow" on the right hand side and click "Copy link"

4.  Open the App "Qrafter"

5.  Click "Create" at the bottom of the screen. 

6.  It will create a unique QR code.

7. Press the "up arrow" icon to save the image to the camera roll. 

 8. Insert the image into Pic Collage to add headings, words, pictures...

9. Add the collage into Dropbox and print from your computer. 

Creating QR Codes

Creating QR Codes

On the iPad

1 Drop the videos into a folder in the dropbox app. 

Create A Dropbox Shared Link

1. Sign in to your Dropbox account through the Web (probably easier on computer so that you can print them out)
2. Click on the file you want to share.
3. Select “Share Link” from the action bar across the top
4. A pop-up appears – click on “Get Link”
5. You will then be shown a preview of your file. Copy the link from your browser’s address bar to use when you create your QR code (below)

Create Your QR Code

1. Go to www.qrstuff.com
2. Choose the “Dropbox” data type.
3. Paste the link from Step 5 above into the box provided.
4. Download your QR code. Done!

Example letter I have sent to parents to explain QR codes. 

Dear Parents

At ______ Pre Primary we would love to share students work with you and as many of these special moments are captured via photos, video and audio we have decided to use QR codes to share students work. This will allow you to  download your child’s work right onto your phone/ iPad. 

For those that are unfamiliar to Qr codes don't worry, I’m sure you have seen QR (quick response) codes on packaging and magazines.  What they do is link you to useful information on the web. Therefore rather that typing in a long web address all you need to do is scan and you’re away. 

Phones and iPads don't come with a built in QR reader, so you will need to download one from the app store. There are many free apps that will work fine. 

Next you'll need to find a QR code to scan and open the app. Most Apps will just require you to hold the camera over the square code and it will automatically direct you to the required webpage. 

Our Kindy QR codes will direct you to a form of cloud storage such a Dropbox. From here a download button will appear and you will need to press this to download it onto your own device. 

Online communication with parents

Today we were discussing how to engage reluctant parents or provide digital communication to parents. The use of text message reminders and other forms of communication were discussed.

Fresh Grade might be what you are looking for.  This is an app and a website where you can capture, document and communicate with parents.

The app allows you to take a photo or video, add a comment and instantaneously push it out to the parents app (Parents who don't have smart phones can log on through the web).

This is an example of what the parents would see.

Let me know if this is something you may be interested in looking at further.

Week 1 Term 2 lessons

Welcome back to term 2 everyone,

Todays lessons were great.
Debs class are creating a slideshow of letters in "30 hands". Students are drawing the letters and recording their voice on each slide. Students are building up to be able to do this independently and the aim is to create enough slides to cover the whole alphabet.

Deb -  the App we discussed was "Chatterkids", this is a free app that allows you to add a mouth to an image. The mouth moves when the student adds their own voice to it.

Hayley's class were learning about ANZAC day, students were introduced to "Book Creator" and drew pictures depicting part of the ANZAC story. The next step was to add audio to the page and describe any information they knew about ANZAC day. 

Alison's class also used "Book Creator" today. Students took a photo of a picture they had drawn recounting their holidays and cropped the picture to exclude the writing.  Students then added a typed heading and narrated their recount. 

Sarah's class used "Pic Collage" to explore synonyms relating to emotion. Students took photos of themselves showing a specific emotion and added text. 

These were transferred into dropbox so that they can be printed and displayed around the classroom  as a writing prompt. 

Harmony Day / 19th March

Overall everyone is  super keen, with amazing ideas. Most teachers are working along similar ideas and everyone is finding it easier to allocate students certain iPads, so that all their work can be stored in one place. The idea of creating a book in Book Creator that holds all the students is great and will help with sharing this work with parents.

I have put some information about Padlet, a website that students can collaborate on in the resources section of this site. Jude and I were discussing it yesterday.

Em

Padlet

What is Padlet? 

Padlet is a virtual wall that allows people to express their thoughts on a common topic easily. It works like an online sheet of paper where people can put any content (e.g. images, videos, documents, text) anywhere on the page, together with anyone, from any device.

As it’s web based you can have students on computers or iPads all collaborating together. All you need to do is give your students the URL. 

Once signed in you have the following options:

Customise the wall title and description.

Customise the background (wallpaper).- By creating an image such as a KWL you can add it as the background to structure students comments. 

You can also choose how your posts will appear. Choose Freeform if you want students to be able to place posts in a chosen spot. e.g. label a map or in a KWL.

Use Grid if you don't want the posts overlapping and use stream for the most recent post to jump to  the top. Stream is a great way to have a blog experience without students having login’s. Use it for collaborative Chapter reviews for example. 


Examples:

Week 6 Classroom Lessons

Hey FLDC crew, 

Again massive thank you for being prepared and trying out the apps between sessions. As some of you have found by revisiting the same apps again it has helped to consolidate the students knowledge. The process then becomes more about the learning objective and less about the tech side of it. 

Hayley’s class have been focusing on numbers to 10, the students used “Showme” to record their voice and record drawing the numbers. 

In groups students first made the number with counters and took a photo of it. Then in "Showme" they recorded their voice “this is the number 7” and drew the number on the page. 

( We had a few small glitches in the app, with the writing not appearing. I'll check it out this week)

Overall it was a great way to record writing and speaking at the same time. 

Lucy was working on pronouns- Lucy had the students using Puppet Pals to explain who is holding what toy. "He is holding a Green car."

Puppet Pals allowed for students to listen back to their recordings and save the recordings as evidence if needed.

Deb's class have been cooking 2 minute noodles. We used Pic Collage to sequence the photos and they are putting them in Book Creator. Once in Book Creator the students will record their voice to explain the process.

Deb and I also looked at Air Drop- this is only available on the new iPads in A block, it allows you to send photos via bluetooth. Therefore taking photos on 1 iPads can easily be sent to the other 3 iPads in your class. C block will need to use Dropbox to share photos and work.

Alison's class created a Pic Collage after a picture sort. Students had to take photos, import them to Pic collage and write their name. 

Creating a Popplet such as the example below could be another option to display this kind of language work. 

Pic Collage student work 

Popplet Example

Lucy's class consolidated their knowledge of Puppet Pals and retold a different story. Using the App for a second time the students showed a lot more independence and it allowed students to push ahead quickly if they were confident with the App. As students were quite independent it allowed students to move outside to a quiet recording area so that they had less background noise. 

Jude's class ( Sorry I forgot to grab a photo) retold the story of Mr Gumpy using Puppet pals.  Students worked in 3 groups and some students even tried to add expression and character voices. 

Each group created a great first try, I can't wait to see what else they create next week. 

Hey all, 

Thanks for all being prepared and ready to go yesterday. Also a massive thank you to Vivienne for getting Reflector on all of your computers and "30 hands" downloaded. 

Hayley’s class

What a beautiful class to start my day with, the year 1’s in Hayley's class were brilliant this morning. We used “30 hands” to retell the story of Mrs Wishy-Washy. In 3 groups students took pictures of each of the pages in the book and put them in order. Then in rotation students added their oral recordings to each page. They loved hearing their voice back again and some students wanted to redo their recordings at they had not spoken clearly enough into the microphone. 

"30 hands" also can be saved to the camera roll as a video, therefore sharing it with parents or saving it to a computer is easy.

Lucy's Class

Lucy’s class were working on students vocabulary around movement, focusing on words such as up, down , through and under…..etc. Lucy had taken photos of her students and they placed themselves as characters on a photo of the playground. In Puppet Pals students had to describe how they move   around the playground  e.g. “First I went up the slide, then over the bridge”.

The students are still playing with what the app can do but they are learning fast.  It was a great way to record their oral language. 

Deb's Class

Deb and the amazing Pirates in A6 were exploring sounds and had previously taken photos of objects starting with P, A or S. 

In group rotations students created a Pic Collage or a page in Book Creator. 

Deb and I were also looking at DropBox so that these little masterpieces can be printed. 

Allison's Class

Allison’s class worked with Pic Collage, in groups students went on a sound hunt. Taking photos  of objects that began with a certain letter. 

They then collated them in Pic Collage, adding borders and also students names. 

Sarah’s class

Sarah's students retold the story of The Three Kangaroo Gruff, adding in their own characters and backgrounds. Sarah's main aim was for a oral retell that breaks down the story into beginning, middle and end. By having 3 backgrounds this helped students separate these parts. 

Jude's Class

Jude's class are focusing on transport and used Popplet to create a brainstorm. 

This allowed students to link ideas and group them by colour. 

Most groups needed some prompting from the teacher working with the group, so Jude will repeat the lesson with the class today. 

Overall the students did a fantastic job. 

Technology integration is based on a lot of research and case studies. The main models that I like to  keep in mind when working with teachers are listed below.

 TPACK

The Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) conceptual framework was created by Mishra and Koehler and describes the use of ICT in learning and for professional work. 

The framework is represented in a venn diagram and highlights the idea that using ICT in the classroom must have a sound curriculum fit and meet the pedagogical ideas of the teacher.  

21st Century Fluencies 

21st Century Fluencies is a set of skills identified as crucial for our students to succeed when they graduate in todays ever changing world. 

They comprise of the following:

Solution Fluency is the ability to think creatively to solve problems in real tim, by clearly defining the problem, designing an appropriate solution, delivering the solution and then evaluating the process and the outcome. 

Information Fluency is the ability to unconsciously and intuitively interpret information in all forms and formats.

Creativity Fluency is the process by which artistic proficiency adds meaning through design, art, and storytelling.

Collaboration Fluency is the ability to work cooperatively with virtual and real partners in an online environment to solve problems and create original products.

Media Fluency is the ability to look analytically at any communication to interpret the real message, as well as being able to create original communications though the most appropriate and effective medium.

Chck out more information here: 21st Century Fluencies

SAMR

The SAMR model describes four levels of technology integration that increase in complexity and effect, from simple substitution which barely changes the function, to a more complex redefinition where the technology use can provide opportunities to create what would not be possible without that technology

Australian Curriculum- General Capabilities. 

If we look at the main ideas in the Australian Curriculum General Capabilities we need to focus on Investigating , Creating and Communicating.  These skills are broad and can be taught in any context. As an overarching goal we need to make sure that the students are making Ethical decisions and looking at good digital citizenship content can help guide students to work ethically online.