Learning Gems

I’ve written before about this fantastic project. With the release of Inanimate Alice Episode 4 ‘Hometown’ I am even more convinced that this type of multimedia story is the future of e-reading.

iStori.es

The new episode comes with its own education pack and news of an authoring tool, iStori.es, which is previewed by Alice in this episode. It looks like a fantastic tool to encourage multimedia storytelling, something that students seem to prefer to the more traditional method. I will probably look at ordering it for my school next year.

Learning Opportunities

The learning potential of these stories is enormous…not only do they encourage reluctant readers, they also open the door for so many learning opportunities. Activities that immediately spring to mind after my first reading of episode 4 are:

• Students could use Google Earth to map and highlight features in their own neighborhoods. (Alice explains her new life via a map with clickable points that help to advance the story.) A focus on historical buildings and/or geographical features would instantly lead this activity into History and Geography units.
• Students could easily use their own photographs to put together a photostory of their own, complete with music and words. This would, hopefully, lead to all sorts of discussion points about how music and visuals help to create atmosphere and advance a story.
• General ‘Exploration’ activities: Hints that all is not well in Alice’s current life; possible futures for the family; the importance of Brad; evidence of Alice’s ‘teenagehood’…

Teacher feedback

As an English teacher and Teacher-Librarian I love educational resources which take a ‘new’ approach and which I know will also engage students. I am always looking for something exciting and different so Inanimate Alice is perfect for me. (If it involves technology and reading it’s always a winner!) I passed the resource onto several other teachers, both primary and secondary, and they loved it too. The primary teachers were very impressed and raved about the education pack in particular.

I wonder how many teachers have seen their schools purchase new ‘Wow-factor’ technology only to find it used to continue and reinforce outdated teaching methods. In the wrong hands a PowerPoint presentation can be just as monotonous as an hour of ‘chalk and talk’. Similarly, an e-learning course can be little more than an online presentation of black-line masters if not constructed to be engaging and stimulating.

In my opinion one of the best things about the 2.0 shift is the way many educators are now using technologies for different types of teaching and learning. Thinking has changed. Educational opportunities emerge almost daily and I recently discovered something with enormous potential: Inanimate Alice, interactive “multi-sensory” storytelling.

As a teacher-librarian I have been quite sceptical about the benefits of e-books, especially in terms of their ability to encourage students to read. Online books do not conjure up cosy images of reading; they still need to be read in the ‘traditional’ way. However, Inanimate Alice is different and I believe it represents the future of e-reading and online storytelling.

Teachers can sign up for a newsletter and education resource pack by clicking on the image below:


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I am still exploring the web looking for ideas to help with my Book Week Literacy project, a story book using the prompt “Imagine if I discovered…” In my travels I found Big Universe Online Children’s Books and created a small story using the prompt myself. The book was easy to construct using illustrations provided on site although I did have to watch the demo first. It was approved for online publishing in a few hours. I decided that Big Universe has huge ‘learning gem’ potential. I can imagine teachers and parents using it as a literature and writing learning tool. Hopefully, it will also help me to create some excitement for my Book Week project!

The books are free to create and read online.

One of the projects I am working on for this year’s Book Week is a literacy project which will involve our primary school students in the writing, publication and launch of a school story book built around the prompt ‘Imagine if I discovered…” The aim will be for each student to contribute to the publication by responding individually to the topic. Each student will be allocated one page in the book.

Of course this is a major endeavour and today I have been searching the web for ideas and inspiration. I am always looking for imaginative ways to motivate students to write and think creatively and I was particularly looking for visual strategies to act as ‘warm up’ exercises. I stumbled across Toondoo and started to fiddle…

This site has huge potential as a creative writing and planning tool that is both fun and simple to use.