Zimmertwins movie

During lecture we had a look at a display on ultranet seemed interesting. Apart from the basic classroom and school tasks incorporating ICT within the school agenda like the students e portfolio and the ultranet have to be worked on. During my practicum I did not notice it being used at all, there was an introduction PD in my first practicum school.
Two things which Greg said in class I will always remember is firstly, as a new teacher take your time to get the basics right and strong like the classroom management, knowing your students, planning, assessment, other skills like ultranet can be learnt over time these are only supportive skills.
Secondly, these ICT tools can be used to protect our environment, I have mentioned previously in my blog I was stunned by the amount of paper being used and wasted every day in every classroom! It has changed a lot in this terms in corporate culture, same should change in the education field. I am wondering how shortage of laptops or computers in classrooms and the culture of worksheets in primary schools work together to help towards saving trees ?

www.dvolver.com/live/movies-469664

This was a movie I created but would not load on as a movie and it disturbed the setting for the rest of the blog it has come up as a blank screen.
It was fun making a motion movie myself. Grades 4 -6 will find it interesting. It can be used to communicate issues in school, use as starters in school projects.

My thought with ICT is also that it helps to keep focused on learning by engaging them well in the task.





http://www.reasonablyclever.com/ you can create 3D leggo like character stories. I tried my hand on making a 3D character.
Greg's short , sharp , to the point passage of writing for dictation was an eyeopener, how much we depend on spellcheckers? In english so many words sound the same but mean different. http://www.ziptales/ .com a purely australian website , I liked the make,and do, I love crafty and creative ideas so I feel this is a great website personally and I can also use it to teach children for literacy, numeracy and creative arts like telling a story by making your own puppets. This reminded me of the jelly fish I taught kids too make which I came across the book. This website is great as we can even share with the children the process of making the item , they learn to read and follow instructions together as a whole class on IWB , they also learn to write procedural texts as part of their literacy writing.







Going on to http://www.sketchswap.com/ was funny would be good to swap within a school as Greg suggested can also be sharing the sketches between two classrooms or schools somewhere in India Finland or France.



It is interesting for students to their ideas along with their own sketches. this is using the modern ICT age. Not perfectly sure how is it clearly useful but may be great for engaging activities, a learning curve for sketches just through observation, great starters for discussions for critical thinking and analysis for further research topics for groups.


www.abc.net.au/rollercoaster/rollermache was a great website to look at for planning and creating your own animated movie! www.xtranormal.com/watchmovies is the adult version of animation, may not be very suitable for primary classrooms. All this is great, but I know if I want to introduce this for my students firstly I need to get hands on, in it , create some by myself and need to consider the logistics for work in the clssrooms with limited computers or even if it in ICT labs do the students get to finish their work within the session as in some schools the ICT sessions are also shared with other classrooms.












Build your wild self is fun to be used in a classroom in the beginning of the year which helps children to express themselves, can also be printed out to introduce themselves in a funny way. teachers can also use it to talk about the different features and what they may mean like the different ears which animals have them where are these animals found? make yourself if you belong to a particular place like if you are in a cold place, the features you will have are? Describing new self involves creativity and thus increasing the students literacy. A classic example of integration of literacy, creativity and ICT.

















We had a look at http://www.zimmertwins.com/ . A really interesting website to create simple movies by kids , I feel this can be used to create or retell simple stories. Instead of copying picture stories. we as teachers can create a movie without any speech and get students to add appropriate punctuation. This is also great for children who are very reluctant writers, writing should not stop their comprehension being expressed in a suitable way.
We can even get students to continue eachother's stories by looking at the pictures.
Great for Vel levels 3 and 4 , the students can also use the starters and continue the story in their own way. After putting all togeter to make a movie , they can write a narrative of their own story.

In my themed weekly plan the internet was used very often within the classroon either on the IWB or the computers by the students themselves.
The week after holidays we worked on literacy on the theme 'Penguins'. First we learnt the different features of the penguins using a book. Then the children got different info sheets about penguins which they read as pairs and got the information on a Y chart. This really worked well and this format greatly helped them to share with the whole which in turn was fun to learn , made them read and put down the inf they read in their own words.
Next we had to find out about the different penguins. First time in the school our Grade 2 was the first one to use the new laptops within the classroom individually. The children were very excited and were enthusiastic to use it to get information about different penguins.
Finally after putting the info on paper, the drew their favourite penguin on paint with their info in the text boxes in paint.

Some of the things I learnt how ICT can be integrated in classrooms for learning are:

Drill, practices or instructional software lets students practice maths facts, spelling and vocabulary, which was very frequently seen in schools during my practicum.

Simulations, problem solving software like mind mapping help students develop their understanding constructively.

Teacher allow students multiple ways to demonstrate achievement. eg Web pages, publishing newsletters and brochures.

Visual and interactive resourses help keep students' attention, drills and practise materials gives students to learn in private space and in own pace.

By reading, I also learnt ICT helps by distance course subjects for schools who lack teachers, simulations help repeated science experiments for schools with low budgets.

Other interesting things were-
Students find writing and calculating boring or tedious! - Word processing /calculators / spreadsheets help.
Students cannot travel to places to learn about - Virtual tours.
Students lack motor skills when designing-Drawing software and computer assisted design(CAD)
Some physical or social phenomenon occur too slowly or quickly or at a great distance for observation - Simulations, Human body (BBC), aussie eco ranger.

I felt these were truly useful ways of using ICT in classrooms for promoting learning.