Twitter Tales

This week, I was exploring the use of social networking tools to stimulate or support creative writing with a class. I based one exercise on the Fortunately/Unfortunately wiki.

Twitter
Originally uploaded by respres

I started the story with this tweet: "Unfortunately, while walking to school I fell down a hole!" and the idea was that the students would take turns at continuing the story alternating between "Fortunately" and "Unfortunately". I'll give you the link to the story so far in a moment but a couple of explanations are required to help you make sense of some of the extra messages in the archive.

First, I just posted my tweet with out explanation. As a result, two people expressed concern that I had fallen down a hole! One of the messages in the archive is therefore me thanking them for their concern and explaining what I was doing. The other problem is, not all of the messages showed up in the archive. As a result, I had to re-tweet them. Unfortunately, we ended up with three "Fortunately"s in a row before I re-tweeted. Despite these teething problems, I think the story is beginning to shape up:

Hashtag archive - #BEd42010 A Fortunately, unfortunately story created by BEd students

What do you think of the story so far?

The BEds Get Animated

This is the last post, for now, on the work of the BEd Computers, Creativity and Education class. The final session was on stop-motion animation. (For the other posts, see The BEd Students Tell A Story and The BEds are back... and this time they're podcasting.)

As with many of the other sessions, we started with a brief presentation on the value of pupils creating animations and its potential educational value. There was then a quick demonstration of the animation software - we used the wonderfully simple, yet very powerful, I Can Animate. The students then formed into two groups and started work.

In the space of about 80 minutes, they had to film their animation and then import it into iMovie. In iMovie they added sound effects, music and titles. Given the time constraints they were working under, I think both groups produced fun animations that tell a story. Hopefully they will have seen that, although it is time consuming, the ICT skills required to create an animation are not hugely complex.

If you have any suggestions or examples on how animation can be used effectively, please leave a comment. I am sure the students would be glad to hear from you.

The BEds are back... and this time they're podcasting

One of the courses I really enjoy teaching is the Computers, Creativity and Education class. We look at a wide range of creative computer use, for example, the other day they aimed to tell a story in five frames and I posted a request for you to have a look at their pictures (The BEd Students Tell A Story).

spyPod
Originally uploaded by DavidDMuir

In yesterday's class, they had a go at podcasting. I wrote about the approach we took last year (Another podcast... and an explanation) and we followed pretty much the same pattern this time. The students formed themselves into three groups, planned a podcast on a topic studied during the module and then recorded it in Garageband. The three podcasts are available below:

• Blogging
• Garageband
• Podcasting

It is worth pointing out that all three groups were working in the same room using the Macintosh's built in microphone so there is a lot of noise leakage. It is also clear that in a couple of the podcasts, the students were on the edge of dissolving into laughter. (There were probably more outakes, where one or all of the students burst out laughing, than there is material in the podcast itself!) In this case, however, the the process is the important part. We wanted them to see that, with the right software, it is not technically difficult to produce a podcast.

Do you have any advice you want to offer the students? Are there any school/education podcasts you think they ought to listen to?

The BEd Students Tell A Story

Last week the BEd students were telling stories in five frames. If you are signed up for Flickr and the appropriate Flickr group, you should be able to see there work here:

• Kicked Out!
• The Story of an Autumn Leaf
• Day at Jordanhill

If you can't see the group, the photos are public so you can see them in the students' photostreams:

• Kicked out! - Photo 1
  
• The Story of an Autumn Leaf - Photo 1
• Day at Jordanhill - Photo 1
  

Please drop by and leave them a comment.

More from the creative BEds

I have already posted a couple of the podcasts our BEd Computers, Creativity and Education class produced. I thought I would post some video this time.

We had already spent some time over the proceeding weeks looking at the whys and wherefores of digital creativity, so I cut the introduction to the bone and went, more or less straight away, into a demonstration of I Can Animate. (A stunningly useful piece of software!) But I also did a "here's one I prepared earlier" with videos from schools, previous years' students as well as some demonstration movies to give students a flavour of what the package can produce.

We then split them into groups of three or four and gave them just over an hour to create/assemble models and sets, to film a short section of animation and to import it into iMovie to add sound effects and music.

Here's the films that Amy Linzi and Donna (I think) produced:



So what do you think? Do you have any advice for the students? What are the best educational uses of animation you have seen?

Another podcast... and an explanation

There are some courses that I enjoy teaching, and the BEd 4 Computers, Creativity and Education class is one that I really enjoy. We talk about a whole bucket load of interesting stuff, for example: Telling Tales with Flickr.

Podcast Bear
Originally uploaded by blogefl

The classes tend to follow the same basic pattern. First we'll introduce the technology/tool and talk about it's value to education. In the podcasting class we talked about:

• telling stories
• giving children a voice
• using the technology pupils use
• giving children a (worldwide) audience
• encouraging co-operation
• supporting diverse learning styles
  
• allowing pupils to receive feedback from a variety of sources
• children staying on task and setting themselves high expectations

Then we let them hear some of the Radio Sandaig podcasts. {I think it's important to let theme hear pupil voices and pupil produced podcasts. In Higher Education, it seems people are pleased with themselves when they podcast an hour long lecture! I want students to see the pupils as creators, not just consumers of podcasts.} We also share my podcast related delicious links. {I think I need to categorise or prune that list. Too much stuff all mixed up together!}

This was followed by a brief demonstration of Garageband (about ten minutes) which left just over half an hour for them to produce their own podcast. They were divided into groups of two or three and assigned a topic at random from things we had already studied. {I used the Random Name Picker tool to assign topics - thanks to Ewan and TeachMeet for introducing me to this brilliant tool.}

I've already posted Cheryl and Gill's podcast in Podcast from BEd class. Here's another one, this time by Amy Linzi and Ailie. It is about delicious and the usefulness of online bookmarks:

Online Bookmarks

I especially like the sung version of the delicious URL at the end! What do you think? What advice should I give the students to help them improve their podcasts? What other podcasts should they listen to? Can you suggest ways they can use podcasts in their classes?

Podcast from BEd class

The BEd 4 Computers, Creativity and Education class created podcasts today. Here's one by Gill and Cheryl about Digital Video in the classroom.

Pretty good for only ten minutes tuition on GarageBand and 30 minutes to record.

Digital Video Podcast