Susanne Edvards four smaller tasks

My Portfolio Tasks 

1. For three years ago I started a tutor blog in order to inform parents a little bit more about what we were doing in school and to tip the families of all the various things you could do in Stockholm. We have over 60 museums, several nature reserves, you can actually fish salmon in the central of our capital, and how many cities in the world are you able to do that? And of course the local attractions such as Sky view, Globen, city hall and the castle. This is the blog http://blackfisken.blogspot.se/. My thought was also to let the children write there and use it instead of the traditional letter that I wrote every week. I liked to write on the blog but it took a lot of time, and it was not supported by my boss to do this in my work time. The problem then was also that I didn’t have access to a computer of my own in school so I had to bring my own with me from home to do this.   I hope that I someday will have the time to make a running blog since I see a lot of purposes with it. Dudeney, G and Hockly, N ( 2007) states that there are some obvious advantages to using blogs in the classroom since it is a real chance for the children to practice on their written English.

 2. Skype is quite a new tool for me. I met the tool during this course and when my daughter got sick in December it became a fantastic way for her to keep in touch with the school topics and her fellow students. Since she was to sick to go to school and to sick to have home teaching  she came up with the idea by her self that maybe a teacher could use Skype to teach her 1 hour a day. And sometimes she can participate in group activities in the school with her friends this way. So I take this with me as a teacher and will keep it in mind if a pupil of my own should get really sick.

 3. Dudeney, G and Hockly, N (2007 page 62) states that Email is one of the most used and useful ICT today. As a teacher I get a huge amount of emails every day, most of them sadly is just junk mails and sometimes I find it difficult to pick over my inbox what to read and not. I know that reading, sending and deleting emails take a lot of time for me as a teacher it takes about 3 hours a week actually. But then I think of what the option is, to write a letter, find an envelope, the address, a stamp and go to the letterbox. Now you can write and send a letter in a very short time. Using email I can send information to all my class parents by just one click.

 4. Smart board is a tool that I hope to get into my classroom in a close future. There is so much you can do if you have access to this tool. If you are talking about a flower that the children doesn’t know you can find a picture of it and show it to all the children at the same time, today I have to use my own smart phone or computer , find the picture and then show each and everyone of the children  two at the time. Smart board is an ICT tool that would really save me lot of time.

Susanne Edvards Blog post about Stop motion movie

Stop motion movies

Stop motion is a technique to fool the eye that dead items actually are moving. To do this you need a film or video camera that can take one picture one at a time.

The animator takes a lot of photos of items with very little variation in position, and then shows the photos quickly. To do this you need a computer and an animation or video editing software an illusion of movement is created. If you have access to an I phone or an I pad you can down load this program in the Appstore.

 

The Lgr 11 states in the first chapter that pupils shall be able to try out different expressions such as drama, rhythmic, dance, musicianship and creativity in art. As I see it when the pupils are making movies like this they are able to make a dram of their own, they can make music to the movie and creativity in art, well it’s moving art. Also in the written purpose for the topic art in Lgr 11 it is written that the pupils should get experience of visual culture like film. Also in the main content for art in the Lgr 11 photography and program transfer is something that the pupils should try during their early ages in school.

As a teacher I see one opportunity most of all, the pupils are interacting with each other, talking and doing things together and if I have learnt something as a teacher it is just that fact that when children are doing things together they are learning to collaborate. This is a fantastic tool for pupils to work in smaller groups and besides the fact that they are getting to know each other they develop their language, learning from each other. This is a sovereign program to work in topic integrated subjects. In my school we don’t have access to Iphones nor Ipads but together with a personal from Medioteket we came up with four Ipads. We had been working a lot with dinosaurs and the human development. So the pupils choose in their groups different sequences in the history of life. At first we went through what the order of the sequences should be and what would happen there. Then they started to work, they used play dough, paper, cloths, wires and cardboard. For two whole weeks they didn’t do anything but manufacturing subjects for their movie. In my class some of the pupils were really experts on this program and they helped the others to getting to know the program and how to take pictures with the Ipad and edit them. When the groups were done with the real work they started to make other movies. If I had access to Ipads I would really use them a lot in all my topics. I think it would be usefully as a portfolio of a pupils development, if they are working with something you can take a picture when they start, some pictures when they are working with it an the final product. I do so privately with my family car projects they comes home like stiff and rolls out like majestic then it is really fun to see all those 200 hours of work in 25 seconds. 

Since you need a huge amount of pictures to make a movie for just 1 minute I don’t think it’s the best program to set up a movie with a lot of information to the pupils. To do that there is a lot of other programs like Photo story or Moviemaker that is more suitable.

 

 

 

Photo Story 3

Microsoft Photo Story 3

 

I have used the program Photo story a lot in my teaching the latest years. The program is free to down load and very easy to work with. The program is a slideshow software and it provides opportunities to do photo presentations. Photo Story lets you drag photos onto a window, arrange them as needed, then provide custom narration, transitions, zooms, pans, audio soundtracks and/or custom auto-generated music. Then you can export the final result as a WMV file. Applying such features, as mentioned, can be tricky in some programs but I find it very easy in Photo Story. The result is a “slideshow-movie” that you can share at blogs, the schools homepage, e-mail or put on You Tube for others to watch.
My experience is that the pupils are very proud over the Photo story movies they have produced. To the children the final movies looks really professional. They love to share them with their families, relatives and friends.

To get started you need a computer, a digital camera to take pictures with and/or a scanner (if you prefer to let the children draw handmade pictures and then scan them into the computer). If you want to record sound you also need a headset. If you use pictures on the internet in Photo Story- consider the rules of copyright. Then of course, you have to down load the program which can be done at the following link:

http://microsoft-photo-story.en.softonic.com/  The program is developed for Windows XP.
The program is really easy to understand and use, but if you need further explanations or instructions have a look at:
https://sites.google.com/site/photostorymanual/
http://instruktionsfilm.wordpress.com/2010/01/11/photostory/

 

As a teacher Photo Story offers a tool for presentations. You can use Photo Story as a teacher to present a story or fairy tail to the children, maybe as an introduction to a topic. In that case you make the story on your own before introducing it to the children.
You can also choose to make the Photo Story together with the children. That is what I have been doing a lot and that I really recommend. My purpose has then been to teach English using ICT- Photo Story as a tool. The aim was to let the children learn specific topics in English, learn to use IT, show others what has been learned and keep the children motivated.
How you chose to work with Photo Story as a teacher all depends on what purpose you have and what learning outcome you are aiming at. But you do it either as an introduction that you make as a teacher or as a tool for the children to work with for presenting or describing.

I have noticed that using Photo Story as a ICT-tool together with the children makes them really motivated. Motivation is very important in learning. The children can tell a story in the program. They can also present what they have learned in a topic and the Photo story movie will then be a final product. Photo Story gives opportunities to develop the children’s communicating skills as they listen, talk and they might also write and read when they create a story in the program. It documents what the children have learnt and can be a product for assessment and/or kept in a portfolio to asses the children’s learning over time. The whole process in having children creating a Photo story is also a very good opportunity for formative assessment for the teacher.

Considerations… If you are using Mac you will not be able to use this program. You also have to consider that the output movies from the software are not as sharp as they would be in VCD or DVD format. You can not mix still photos and movies in Photo Story (as you might be able to do in for example Movie Maker). Photo Story can only handle still pictures. The children can not start making movies on their on immediately- they will need education.

But in the end I do not think there is much that can match Photo Story in terms of its ease of use and automated features.

 

Camilla Nilvius

Photostory

Potostory

Photo Story from Microsoft is a program or tool that they provide. Microsoft says that the tool should be used to organize photos easy and fun. In which I can agree with Microsoft, it will be more fun and easier. Although I have found other programs/tools I think is simple and good.

It is simple in that way the program helps you through the process of creating animated albums, stories, histories, fairy tales, to name a few. It’s you, the user who sets the limits.

I learned this program a few years ago when the School Board put out a course called PIM. Since then there has happened a lot with the programs and the computers that are used today. In that time there was only one computer in every classroom and one digital camera on the entire school. It took an awful lot of time to carry out a photo story with each student. It usually led to a group assignment and that led to that just only a few students learned how to handle the programs.

Today the situation is completely different. Each student has their own laptop to work in. This means that all students will be more or less experts to handle computers and programs available today. In the case of the world of education, free is a good word, and photo story is a free program. Just go to the Microsoft website and start downloading. Once you have downloaded it, you just have to start working.

You can use photo story in all your subjects but I use it mostly in my Swedish-and English-teaching. Recently we made a job in Swedish where the children were reading different stories. They chose a story and picture set it using the photos they have taken. After that they got to make their own story in the photo story program. They took photos and animated, changing color on them and recorded their reading or wrote a text to the image.
In parallel, we worked with a similar task in English. The difference between the English and the Swedish task was that in the English task they were only allowed to do oral storytelling to the pictures. It's a funny way to practice pronunciation in and they can hear themselves how they pronounce the words. Sometimes they can’t get the image they want without the need to search the internet for one. Since I think it's important that they know the rules for downloading images on the internet I automatically get a lesson in copyright.

Lars Lind

Photostory

Photostory

Photo story!! What a great tool it is. All you need is a computer and the software. It is free, and you can download it from Microsoft’s homepage.  

Then it is all up to you and your imagination….

Photostory is a program where you use pictures to tell a story or to present a subject or a theme. The pictures you use can be taken by the pupils with a digital camera or you can use online photos.You can  put sound, music and text to the story. You can also make animations to each picture. It is fun, it is easy to learn, it is easy to edit and it makes the pupils proud of their work, because it looks so professional and nice.
 
I first came across this tool when I did the course PIM, “Skolverkets” own ICT education for teachers. Back then I didn’t know how to or what to use it for so I forgot about it until recently when got introduced to it once again. Now I use it as often as I can.

You can use Photostory in all subjects and in many different ways. As a teacher you can use Photostory to present a new theme. You can use it as a teaser to a new book to read out loud in the class or to make stories. It has a countless number of uses.
I have been using it recently in a theme about tales and legends. I told the pupils an old legend from outside our village. Then they were given the task to retell it with Photostory.The same story was made in many different ways. The pupils really enjoyed it.

But remember….
Some children don’t like to record and listen to their own voices. You can then make the presentations in smaller groups until they get used to it. It is not even necessary to record their voices the first time but it is a great tool to use when you want them to discover their own voices and pronunciations. 
And….
Always talk about copyright before they start searching for pictures online.

 

 

 

4 portfoliotasks

My tasks connect to a theme we are going to introduce to the children “Bondgården” in year 1.

Task 1

We will sing “Old MacDonald” first in Swedish then in English. To help with music we will use you tube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_mol6B9z00 in English

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olnCjbKmeOE in Swedish

Task 2

The children get a papper with different pictures of farmanimal from ne.se and the English names of the different animals. They are supposed to draw lines between the right picture and name.

Task 3

I read a story about a kitten living in the coutryside from youtube which I made in the springterm at our course with Mr Satel. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdkzZB5Z5S0

After watching this film we talk about what it meant so that all of the children understand more, I think we will have to use Swedish for this part (in spite of the fact that I like Stephen Krashens theories), since the children are so young and do not have the vocabulary to talk in English yet.

 

Task 4

The children get to tell about their favourite animal with some prepared sentences. We decide what to say together an write it down so that each child only have to add what animal they like and what the animal eats. I will record them with my mobilephone to save in the fronter-program as their first spoken English.

Birgitta

Using a projector and word

My ICT-use in the classroom has increased a lot this last year. The most important factor is the projector that helps me to show i e pictures, text and films on the whiteboard for all the class to see at the same time. We listen to and watch songs from you tube and spotify. We watch instructional films from ur.se via ne.se. I scan storybooks, save them as a power point-presentation and show the children the book at the same time as I read. This allow us to have discussions afterwards about the story, we talk about the pictures and the text and go back and forth in the presentation.

But the use I want to tell you all about is writing. I will not tell you about the use of the program since I believe you all know it, in stead I will tell you a bit about how I use it. From the beginning of this year (I teach a year 1-class with 26 pupils) I have written things in word whilst showing it to the children on the whiteboard. Earlier I would have written on the whiteboard directly and then copied it to paper to save it or to make copies to all children. Now I write on the computer and the children are used to see the markings the computer make – they are quick to tell me if I spell something wrong (which I do frequently :)) or if there is a grammatical problem. Then we can talk about it and change it together easily. I always start by writing down what the children suggests as they say it, then we talk about formulations and spelling and we change the text and print it out.

We started by writing something about what we have done during the week and I let them glue it into their logbook for the parents to see. Now that the children have started to write by hand we start the week by writing what I have planned for the week. I show the planning with the projector and the children write down single words in the logbook.

For example:

Sv Practice writing the letter Pp

Tell a story to some classmates

Ma Practice double and half

Practice the clock

SO Story from the Bible

Safe in traffic

NO Trees, animals and birds in the spring

On Friday they go back to check if we have done it all. And the children marks how they like it by using smileys. Inspired by Lina Rask I have started a class-blog for our class. I will let a couple of children write something about what we have done each day so that the parents can read it. I believe that will inspire the children to write quite a lot.

In Linköping we also use a program called fronter where we, the children and the parents can communicate both plans for the education and the class as well as send-ins in class work and the pupils results. On this site I´ll put a link to the blog and during these next weeks I will introduce both fronter and the blog to the parents as we meet to talk about the progresses made by each child.

We have also talk about mind maps and then I used bubbl.us to show them how to think when you prepare to tell or write something. As you can see the computer is a very good tool for me as a teacher – I just wish we had more of them.