Short movies a tool for the youngest learners in school

Short movies a tool for the youngest learners in school

Kids Zone free ICT resoures

I think it is important that the young children who is learning in a new language should have fun and that they are on the right level. There are a lot of games for the younger learners to play of their own. But I think it is important that they all are together in a group and are looking at the same things and afterwards try to make a dialogue or discussion.

I do not think that it is so much films for young learners. Often it is because the learners have not learned sufficiently large vocabulary to understand the content of a film.

But in Av-media you can find short movies that you easily can stream to a projector or a smartbord, so everybody can see it together. The chosen section are only two or three minutes long and after that it repeat further ten minutes from similar themes.

The films are called Kids Zone.I recomend the films to children between 6-9 years old. They are very good to use for students in grades one and two as a presentation of a theme.

There are twenty six small video clips. There, you will learn the first colors, fruits,clothes, count in English and more. The names of the films are common phrases that are most common used. Some of the titles are "Hello, what's your name?", "I'am seven years old," "This is my family" and "I live in a town '."

The movies contains songs, rhymes, skits and short dialogues from children and adults. These songs and chants are repeated and become easily recognizable.

Worth watching and have a nice time.

Link to Av-media:

http://www.sli.se/avmedia.asp?db=0

Veronica johansson

Photo Story 3

Microsoft Photo Story 3 is a free Windows application that allows you to create audio-visual presentations of your photos and images. Photo Story 3 is a computer program that gives you a lot of resources to use in teaching. Photo Story 3 is a tool for digital storytelling. Equipment needed is a digital camera or camera phone, computer and storytelling. It's quick and easy to charge with Photo Story 3 and you can start your creation. What is needed are images taken with a camera or images downloaded from the Internet. These save on your computer. Then you import the images you choose to use in your digital story and you can tell, add music or talk to each image.
You can quickly crop, rotate and edit your pictures, are provided with captions and titles, and add sound effects, narration and background music for example. from Spotify .. Photo Story saves your presentations as a project that can be edited and saved as a finished project. Finished files can be sent via email as well. You can easily upload your Photo Story on Youtube.com. It's easy to share stories. The digital camera images has become a moving film.

This educational approach is motivating for students who can create their story from concept, storyboard to finished film. Images help students to put into words their thoughts. For the teacher is Photo Story 3 to steer the students focused and help support and structure. In English, students choose pictures that show what the story is about and that fits the written text and the context. When students speak in English speech to pictures show the ability to communicate with words and pictures. Several curriculums achieved. Students can view their saved Photostorys later and see how they evolved, direct feedback. The teacher can also provide feedback to the student during the work. But above all, this lustful way of working gives students a chance to share their lessons and Photostorys to each other.

Digital Storytelling is a way to use computer-based tools to tell stories. As with traditional storytelling, most digital stories focus on a specific topic and contain a particular point of view. But as the name implies, digital stories usually contain some mixture of computer-based images, text, recorded audio narration, video clips and / or music. Digital stories can vary in length, but most of the stories used in education typically last between two and ten minutes. The substances used in Digital Storytelling range from personal stories to restate historical events, from exploring life in one's own community to the search for life in other corners of the universe, and literally, everything in between. It is a good way to start learning through ICT. Communication though pictures that becomes a little film gives another dimension for the storyteller and the audience. I think Photostory3 can be useful for teachers, pupils and others in educational and learning point of view!

Sock puppets

Sock puppets is an app for iPad. You make a puppet show and record the dolls talk. There are six different sock puppets to choose from. You can use four of them simultaneously. You also choose backgrounds. There are eleven to choose from and you can have five pieces in a performance. There are some props too, such as microphone, trees and a stone. There are a total of 16 different properties to choose from and you can have four in a scene. Some of the props you can move while you are recording while some are stuck where you placed them. Students think of course it's fun to get to choose. At the same time the number of choices are limited, which means that you get started with the recording quickly.

When you've chosen puppets and backgrounds, it is time to record the voices. The doll that you click on gets a red marker above it because you will see which one is active. The microphone records when you start talking, and then the active doll moves it´s mouth. You can always switch to another doll while recording. Then click on it and the cursor moves. That way, it looks as if the puppets talk to each other. You can move the puppets across the stage and resize them while recording.

The best thing about the program is that the voices are distorted. You can change settings so that the voices are made lighter or darker if you are not satisfied with how it sounds. You can do this even when you are finished recording. The kids think this is great fun! It also means that they do not think it is such a bad thing to hear themselves. It sounds so totally different!

The version I use is free. It works just fine! The only negative is that the recording time is limited to 30 seconds. Want to make a longer movie, you record several sequences and cut them together in an editing program. If you buy the paid version for 28 SEK you get 90 seconds of recording.

The finished clips can be sent directly to Facebook or YouTube. You need to have paid version in order to save for your album

Lena Söderlund

 

Scanner mouse

Scanner mouse

I work with 27 pupils in grade 4-6 in a rural school and we have a small access to ICT tools. A couple of months ago me and my colleagues visited an educational fair and there we were introduced to a scanner mouse. We thought it seemed to be a useful tool, both for teachers and students, and also a little funny so we decided to buy one to our school to try. 

A scanner mouse is a mouse and a scanner in one. The scanner mouse works by using an underside with 5 LEDs which reflect the image the user is scanning into the mouse.  By pressing a button on the mouse and then swipe the bottom of the mouse over a document or a picture it gets digitized and sent to your computer. You can swipe the bottom of the mouse in any direction over the document and you can do it rather fast. It is possible to scan any size up to A3 but you can also scan a select area on a large sheet of paper.

 

Thanks to the OCR functionality (Optical Character Reader), the text can be scanned and edited directly in the computer. Scanned material can be exported, edited and saved in many different formats, such as doc, pdf, jpeg and tiff. It can also be transferred to Facebook, Twitter, Flickr (by shortcut links) or as an attachment in a new e-mail message. The price for a scanner mouse is about 600 – 1000 Swedish crowns.

 Since we have only had the scanner mouse for a short period, we haven’t got much time to explore it enough yet, but there are many different ways that one can use it.

So far, the pupils have scanned their painted images which they then saved in a word document. Then they have written their own texts about the picture. They have also written texts by hand, scanned the text into the computer and finally use word processing programs to improve their texts. Sometimes they have used ViTal ( which is a “talsyntes”) to get their texts read aloud. They have both been working on their own but also in pairs or smaller groups and I can say they really enjoy using the scanner mouse. The scanner mouse is simple to use and I think it can be a useful resource in English teaching.

Why not give it a try – good luck!

Rosita Glimnér Strömberg

AV-media

AV-media, AV-central; they have different names depended on which part of Sweden you work in. Probably every school have access to a centre on the Internet connected to the "kommun" or “län” where you are able to find films to borrow or to stream. These AV-media centres are different from each other with varied offers and services. I have only access to, and experience from the one in Kalmar län, called AV-media Kalmar. Therefore I only can write based on this source.

AV-media´s mission is to inspire teachers and educationalists how digital tools and the use of film can create more instructive teaching.

What can AV-media offer?

• Pedagogical and educational films - You can stream a film to your classroom. To do this it requires a computer projector and connection with the Internet. If you do not have that, you can get a DVD-disc by mail to watch through a DVD player or on a computer. A tip is to watch the film before your students do; all films are not so instructive and useful as they claim to be. You can also find great instructive films for teachers. For example, there are films how to get your English lessons more successful.
• Technical articles - iPads, speakers, film cameras, microphones, data projectors and voice recorders etc. that you can borrow for a period of time.
• “Read a film” - You borrow a class set of books and tutoring, inspiration booklet and the film. It can be very instructive to read and discuss the book with the classmates and watch the film based on the book to compare them.
• Muzzy Online - Here you can watch the Muzzy Story and play interactive language learning games and do vocabulary lessons in many different languages. This program you can have for free in 3 months if your AV-media do not has it online.
•  Skolplus  - This is a website with a lot of educational programs in different topics, especially math, but also some English.
• WebMath - The website is intended as a support for teachers, student teachers, parents and students. With the help of animations, you can better understand mathematical concepts and calculations.
• Educations to inspire and develop the educators. If the school can afford, you can order an education in a subject you decide and they can come to your school in person. You can also see recorded educations (learning cafés) about different subjects, for example making a film and geo caching.

AV- media can make the education more fun in some cases and make it easier for me to achieve some of the goals in the syllabus, especially since I work in a small school with limited financial resources. Thanks to AV-media my students can create their own music on iPads (as the school has few musical instruments for them to be able to play live), borrow a film camera to make a film or borrow the speakers and microphones to our musical. The list can be longer. Unfortunately, all technology usually takes time to learn and time to fix when it do not work… But we need to try to use the new technology around us to make the learning more fun and varied. And not least to keep up with our students! And when we have learned the technology it will become fun and stimulating even to us! And when we have learn the technology it will became fun and developing even to us!

Malin Svensson

Some tasks to do with your pupils!

4 Portfolio tasks  

At my school we have computers for a whole class and we also have smart boards in every classroom. You can do all these task without smart boards but I think that you should have at least one computer for every two pupils. I usually show the videos/pages on the smart board but if you have a projector for your computer that has the same effect.

Task 1

Skills: “reading” (say the letters) and speaking (singing)

Goals: to learn the alphabet in English

Age of the pupils: 7-9 years

Preparations: It is good if the pupils know the Swedish alphabet. Point out the “difficult” letters like G, H, I, J,Q, R, U, W, Y and Z.

Instructions: Listen to the song one or two times. Then try to sing along.

Links: http://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_401348&feature=iv&list=PL9084E58C7CC0BEB3&src_vid=TdNaNuJWRNs&v=lePD47Xr1ac

My opinion about the site:

Good:

The sound is good and the pitch is right for young children. You can choose to do this together in the class or if you have computer and headset for each kid they can do it on their own.

Bad: There are some commercial and links that can disturb a bite. It is a little bite childish.

Task 2

Skills: Listening and spelling

Goals: to learn words about Easter in English

Age of the pupils: 7-9 years

Preparations:  I write the Easter words in English (that are in the link) on the smart board and ask if the pupils know what they mean and what they connect the words with. Hopefully they say Easter…. I let the pupils write the Swedish words next to the English words.

Instructions: Listen to the Easter words they say on the link 1 and repeat them until you know them. When you know the Easter words go to link 2 and do the test. The test is like “Hänga Gubben” and that is good for the pupils to know before they start.

Links 1 (to practice): http://www.anglomaniacy.pl/easterDictionary.htm

Links 2 (to test): http://www.anglomaniacy.pl/easterHangman.htm

My opinion about the site:

Good:

The sound is good. The pictures are brightly and nice. The site is free from commercial. There are many things to do and to practice on. There are work sheets to print out. There are more ways to practice different things.

Bad:  The page is a little bit “messy”.

Task 3

Skills: reading and writing (and spelling)

Goals: To learn how to spell and say different way of plural

Age of the pupils: 10-12 years

Preparations: I start with asking the pupils to say different kinds of nouns. The pupils write them on the smart board (or a whiteboard) in singular, then, I ask the pupils if they know how to say the things in plural. I sort the word in five groups. The –s-group, the –es-group, the –ies-group, the –oes-group and at last the group with word that ends with –f.

I choose not to take the irregular and special plurals words that changed a lot, like foot – feet. If you have an older/smarter (?) group you might include the group with the irregular words to because there are some in the link.

If you have a smart board you can easily move the words like you wish but you can just as easily write the words on different big papers.

We practice to say the word both in singular and in plural.

Instructions: Go to the link and try the test

Links (easy): http://www.funbrain.com/cgi-bin/plur.cgi

Links (harder): http://www.funbrain.com/cgi-bin/plur.cgi?A1=s&A2=2

My opinion about the site:

Good: It is easy to learn and there are fun and nice pictures. There are other links to try. There is no violence and no inappropriate games on the site

Bad: There are many different things to try and that can be disturbing if you have pupils that are sensitive for “messy pictures” and the pupils might have trouble to “stay on” the task. It is a little bite like “workbook”. If you want to do all things on the page you have to “sign in”.

Task 4

Skills: Listen and write

Goals: To understand “normal” spoken English

Age of the pupils: 12 years

Preparations: Read the questions together and make sure that the pupils know what they mean. These are the questions:

How are the boys related?

Where are they from?

What are their names?

What handicap has the younger boy?

Tell the pupils that they are going to see the video at least twice.

Instructions: Listen to the video and try to answer the questions.

Links: http://www.timeforkids.com/photos-video/video/2012-sportskids-year-74181

My opinion about the site:

Good:

This is a story that the pupils can relate to. There are many other things/stories on the page that children can read about and listen to.

Bad: The sound is not perfect. There are some commercial.

Hope you can try some of these!
/ Carolina Filipsson

A nice site

Anglomaniacy

Blog post about http://www.anglomaniacy.pl/index.html

I work at a school in Norrköping with children that are 7 to 12 years. I mostly teach music but I also help my colleagues, which do not work full time, with class teaching. Since the English lessons are not so frequently in the earlier years I often get the assignment to teach English.

To make the lesson fun and interesting for the pupils I often include things from the internet. We have “smartboards” in every classroom at my school so it is easy to show the pupils sites that I find on the net.

Since I have started this course I have been more effective in my search for new things at the internet.

I found this site a few weeks ago. I think it is a site from Poland but I am not sure about that.

Anyway...it is a nice site and I like it a lot. You do not have to be a member and it is free to use. It is easy to navigate thru all the different kind of things to do. You can “work” with the site with the whole class if you have a “smartboard” or a projector for your computer. The pupils can also easily work by themselves since the site is very easy to manage. You can try the tasks as many times as you wish. The sound is good and the pictures are nice. You are free to download all the print outs on the site if you are just going to use them for your class or for personal use.

I first found the songs and they are magnificent. The songs are traditional English songs and they are just perfect for young children to sing even if their English is not so good yet. The sound is great and the kids and the adults that are singing sounds very good. You can print out the lyrics if you want and the pictures are nice and the text is very clear. There is also a little bit of information about every song. There are also a lot of suggestions of other web pages for other songs. They are added by Google.

When you start at the homepage there are a lot of different things to do. The vocabulary page has many different topics where the pupils can learn many different words. There are some tasks where the pupils can practice to imitate the words. The voice pronounces the words clear and it is easy to hear what she says.

There are a few different kinds of practice tasks, like; memory, hangman game and try to spell the words. They are easy to follow.

There are also two testing tasks. The first one is to mark the right word that fits to the picture. You have one chance to pick the right word and you will found out immediately is you have made the right choice. Then you proceed with the next word. The other test is a vocabulary quiz where you have to read a sentence to make the right guess.

A last you can print out working sheets that are connected to the topic. The working sheets are a little bit like “workbook” but some are fun and challenging and the pictures are very nice.

All the different topics contain all the tasks so there is no chance that the pupils or you will be out of lessons.

There are more things to do, like the grammar lessons. These lessons are for a little bit older children since they practice just grammar, you must know how to read, you have to make many “clicks” to get to the different tasks and you also have “to drag” the words to the right places.  There are many different grammar tasks here and that can be a bit confusing but if the children are about ten years or older I do not think that there will be any problems. The sound is slightly annoying but the printout sheets are very easy to understand and have nice pictures.

You can also find facts about 26 different animals, one animal to each letter in the alphabet. The facts are for children that has been learning English for a few years and not for our youngest, in school. There are printable worksheets to each animal. They contain information but also quizes, crossword and other fun stuff.

I think that this is a site that I will use with my pupils. I have already tried the songs with my youngest pupils (age 7) and they appreciated that very much. If I should say something negative about it, it must be the different suggestion of other websites. The pupils will probably be tantalised to start other pages that are appealing for them. Some of the work sheets are also a bit boring and resemble a lot of “workbook” tasks but I don’t think that they are bad.

I now hope that you will enjoy this site as much as I do! Good luck!

Carolina Filipsson