Monthly Archives: June 2008

Inanimate Alice is a Learning Gem…

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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.


Inanimate Alice iStories

Lists are Learning Gems… I want one too! (Part 1: Opening credits)

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As a relative newcomer to the blogging scene I have thrived on the many lists compiled by other educators and various tech-obsessed enthusiasts happy to share their knowledge and expertise. I appreciate the energy, time and passion that must go into the compilation of such lists, particularly as they have had such an impact on my own learning. I finally feel ready to compile my own small list of useful online stuff

The Learning Gems list is all about me!

This list is all about me and my context…the things that I’ve found most useful as I’ve fossicked about in cyberspace, (I don’t surf!). First and foremost I am an educator, so I get excited about tools and resources with the potential to transform teaching and learning. I am also at a P-12 school so I love discovering things that can be used across a range of levels and subject areas. Key discoveries:

Edublogs: I know there are other blog sites but edublogs fits my context perfectly. It is quick, simple and newbie-friendly. Latest updates have made it even easier to comprehend. I can start blogs for colleagues and students quickly and simply. Furthermore, The Edublogger, Sue Waters, is a tech genius whose blog posts are Learning Gems in themselves!

Another plus is that I’ve discovered edublogs are less likely to be blocked by school filters.

ClassTools: Some great tools here. I used this site to make some fun ‘library’ games and then added them to my library blog. The younger students love them and they’re learning about the library at the same time! They also learned an important lesson very quickly… the questions need to be answered correctly to master the games.

Class Tools library game

OZ/NZ Educators group at Diigo: I discover so much via my membership of this group. Recent discoveries include: mutapic, a great little online picture generator, and 100 Helpful Tools for Every Kind of Learner, a blog post from College@Home that lists tools for all learning styles. I discovered bubbl.us via this post, a great mind mapping /brainstorming tool that I used recently to help a colleague evaluate a student project.

The Learning Gems list highlights things that can be used in a real classroom with real students next week, if necessary.

When I find something useful and exciting I want to use it immediately. I have real students inside my head: a visual learner, an artist, a reluctant reader, a gifted student… etc, so I get excited about stuff with a real and immediate usefulness in my school. Some that fit here are:

Games that promote keyboarding skills:

Keyboard/keyboarding practice a wiki with links to activities that develop keyboarding and; The Key Master, a great game from addicting games that encourages fast, accurate keyboarding.

Such sites will be useful for Mr Grade 4, “It takes too long to type the address”. Somewhere along the way we need to make sure students have the keyboarding skills they need to work quickly and effectively.

Befunky: This tool turns photographs into cartoons…thought I might use the cartoonizer function to write a fun ‘how to research’ guide for my library.

Literature Map: I’ve found that secondary students tend to latch on to a particular author and then demand similar stuff when reading material runs low. This site is a life saver when students ask for such material.

BBC games: A great starting point for literacy and numeracy games.  Why don’t we have something this great in Australia? The bitesize games are incredible. Great for revision. Love questionaut, very quirky! Had some students with special needs check this site out and they loved it!

My list is never ending! When I started my exploration I couldn’t believe the range of material available out there and it just keeps getting better and cheaper! (ie: free!) There is no way I can put all this into one blog post.

The Learning Gems list will continue…