My little space in the world

For those of you who were on our bus trip to Timaru last term, many of you will remember watching a fabulous ‘MAC’ programme called Comic Life being used in a couple of the classrooms at Bluestone.  At the time we were told that this was just for the MAC platform – HOWEVER – I have just found out that there is indeed a version for PCs.  It has a free 30 day trial and then is $24.95 for a license so a reasonable price.  This is a great wee programme for various visual displays, and a great way to study a variety of uses of language while using your own photos.
Check out the PC free trial here.  MAC free trial here.

Here is a little sample of what I have done with some family photos.
(Click on the image to see it with detail)Here is an example of how North Lowburn School in North Canterbury are using Comic Life to reflect on their learning – a learning journal, reflective journal etc.

What a wonderful day!  I have spent today in Dunedin facilitating

Scratch Workshops with some fabulous children from all around Otago.  It was great to work with these creative kids (and teachers) to learn and discover aspects of this wonderful programme.  The conference itself runs over 2 days and is a wonderful opportunity for Yr 5 & 6 children to experience new teachers, programmes and experiences.  One neat quote from a girl this afternoon “I made a video and a friend!!”

My workshops with the programme Scratch were an introduction to using Scratch to produce some animations. Scratch is a great free download (can be used on both platforms) and is relatively simple to use to create animations (and games).  From a teachers point of view it comes with some great support material that can support class use.  Check out the Scratch site here:  http://scratch.mit.edu

 Thanks to Iain Cook-Bonney who has kindly uploaded the Scratch animations from the first workshop today to the Scratch gallery.  Check them out here:  http://scratch.mit.edu/galleries/view/6835

I have uploaded some from this afternoon’s workshop and these can be viewed at http://scratch.mit.edu/galleries/view/6840

You may want to see what others have been up too also – Check out the  blog, the podcasts and the website for the kids @ conference event.

North Otago and the AVRACS cluster were proudly represented by 3 children from each of Duntroon, Ardgowan and Waitaki Valley Schools, so I look forward to hearing of their highlights on their return.

I had a wonderful day on Monday at Duntroon School.  I was working with the Junior teachers, Bev and Linda in the classroom, and was intrigued enough to be keeping an eye on a little guy Lochie – a Year 1 student I think, working just along from where I was.  As a pre-reading exercise Bev had photographed the pages of Lochie’s Ready To Read text.  This wee guy was competent enough to be inserting the images into the Photostory from the class drive and was then recording his own voice to state what he thought each page was about.  What a great way to introduce a text in such a high interest way.

 I guess the implications that this brings though – and Bev mentioned this too – is that of Copyright.  This is a great pre reading activity, using the images to be thinking about what text might later come in the Guided Reading session, however legally I guess this isn’t actually right.  What do you think?  Leave a comment.

I will also upload a copy of a Photostory that a group of Year 4 students created on their findings about the Irrigation systems.  The depth of knowledge is great and PhotoStory is such a simple way for them to share this information effectively.  Watch this space for this!

Shirley at Totara has been building up a great resource of the past few years.  She has been reading much of the Junior reading material onto tape so that there is greater access for children to listen to texts.  She has now changed her resource and is simply using the sound recorder on her laptop (All Programs, Accessories, Entertainment, Sound Recorder).  From here audio files are easily recorded, manipulated and grouped for access for the teacher and particular students.  How easy to now collect fo example all of the ‘Orange’ texts onto a CD for the teacher to use and access.

Another great looking resource is one shared by Janine of Balclutha on her Blog.  She refers to http://www.robertmunsch.com/booklist.cfm where sound files of texts are downloadable.  Download these, Save these and write them to CD for a listening activity on your Listening Post.

BUBBLESHARE: Check out what you can do with Bubbleshare.  I have created an album of photos from our Timaru Bus trip and loaded it onto the front of our AVRACS site.  Here I have created an album of a collection of photos from schools around the cluster.  Isn’t it great?  What a fun way to share static images.  Check this out at www.bubbleshare.com.  Easy to use and an attractive outcome!

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