Saturday, April 23, 2011

Photostories using photostory 3

Download photstory 3 here and start creating your own photostories.



They really are easy and the children love making them. You can access a beginners guide online, but chances are you won't need it as it is very user friendly. It's great for inspiring boys to write too.



You can add narration and create your own music to accompany your 'story'. Here is a story by Finlay, aged 6. He added narration.




It is a story based on 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar'. He drew pictures and photographed them, before adding narration and text to his story.




The next one is an example of how a teacher can use a photostory to promote learning. I showed my film as a poor example of a promotion video, although I was raving about it. I told the children I thought it was fab - the best ever. They quickly disagreed (they criticised language, effects, transitions, music) so I challenged them to make it better.






You could use photostory in any curriculum area, with a range of writing genres and themes. Here are some ideas for children:





Illustrate and narrate a story.


Create a tourist guide 'book'


Create a short history film


Explain how to play football, rugby, netball etc.


Write instructions or create a recipe




Promote your school / game / toy





Here are a couple of ideas for teachers:





Use it to showcase classroom events for parent's evening


Inspire learning by having it as a 'backdrop' during lessons


I made one when my niece got married!

Friday, April 22, 2011

Animation

Using your visualiser to animate


This film clip is a test that I did, using my visualier and windows movie-maker. After I made it (carefully cropping each photo) I remembered that Monkeyjam actually does that for you!




My year 2/1 class created fabulous animations for their 'Very Hungry Recycling Bin' stories. We used monkeyjam again to make them into films. The next step is to add some narration.


Molly and Eleanor in year 1 created this alien landing.





Stick figure animations







Stick figure is one of the easiset (and free) ways of getting the children to animate. They can select from a range of stickfigures and use the tools to 'pad' them out with clothes etc. All you have to do is download the software, introduce it, then let their imaginations roll! Suitable for all ages. Click on the picture to go to the download page. If you would like to watch a useful film showing you how to use pivot stickfigure, click here.


More animation news and resources coming soon

Sunday, April 3, 2011

Story time





Storybird is a collaborative storytelling site that was brought to my attention by Jill Duman (ICT advisor). It is a place where you can create, share and print short stories, inspired by beautiful art work. My favourite so far is Irisz Agocs' art work. What's yours?







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Create your own myths and legends with this brilliant resource from E2BN. My children loved using it to create their very own Norfolk legends.



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Listen to actors reading stories online here.






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Story Museum




A great resource shared by Jenni



1001 multi-cultural stories online here.





My favourite so far is 'The snake and the frog'. Brilliant!












There are some great online resources on the topmarks site. The Animated Aesop's Fables are particularly good - the children loved them when we used them. One of our classes wrote to the author and they received bookmarks and a free signed book!

FREE control and modelling resources




To access the resources shown on this page, click on the pictures.




Create your own Zook with Bamzooki! It's harder than it first seems. You can create a wierd monster or a virtual pet, then play games with a huge community of zooks. You can even compete in the 'Ultimate Zook League!' This is a cbbc site, where children can extend their learning and experiences beyond the classroom.






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Scratch is a free programming tool that makes it easy to create your own interactive stories, games, animations, music and art. Click on the link above to see what you can do and how to download it.





Help sheets are available. Click on the picture below, then look at the tutorials. The scratch cards will help you with basic skills.












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Star logo looks very similar to Scratch, though I confess I haven't used it yet. please let me know if you have! Leave a comment on th blog.







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Kodu is a new visual programming language made specifically for creating games. Easy enough for older primary aged children. It looks really exciting, but i am having problems running it at the moment. I will add more news after our technician has tweaked it for me :)

Saturday, April 2, 2011

Welcome to the blog!


This blog is intended to be a place where ICT news and resources can be shared with a wide community. Hopefully it will work in conjunction with the facebook page of the same name. The purpose of the blog is to link online resources and ideas by subject, so that they are easy to locate. If you have anything that you would like to share, say or ask, please leave a comment either here or on the facebook page.


Sheli Blackburn (Norfolk Primary AST)