Another example of the wonder of animation from Oscar Stringer.
Another highlight of the Hampshire Language Conference was Oscar Stringer's session on Animation. So popular it was put on twice, and had to move rooms to accommodate the number of people wishing to attend, from the conversations I heard, Oscar and his ideas were a hit!
Using I Can Animate and a Hue webcam, Oscar guided the assembled throng through how to animate using fuzzy felts before adding voiceover using iMovie - bet he had no shortage of volunteers!
You can see the finished movies - made in 20 minutes!- on Oscar's blog, along with other examples of animation using languages such as the ones from Wednesday in Gloucestershire, and the lovely animations made with a Reception class last year. You'll also find plenty of tips and guidance on how animation can be used right across the curriculum and beyond.
Today I took part in a Primary Language workshop at Plantsbrook School.
My contribution to the day was called You and Youtube and addressed the use of video and slideshows to facilitate and enhance primary language learning. Below is my presentation. If you click on the videos or the titles, they are all hyperlinked to their source. I've added a few of the clips I used as well.
Having never been to Stoke on Trent previously, I was there twice in three days! This time I'd been invited to speak at a 'Creative Spanish' afternoon for Primary Language teachers, organised jointly by Lorna Harvey from Staffordshire and Helen Thomas from Stoke on Trent. I really enjoyed the presentation on using Art by Shirley Kliment-Temple and was sorry to miss the salsa and skipping!
My presentation was a repeat of the one I did at the Primary Language Show in Liverpool about the QCA unit based on SaintSaens Carnival of the Animals, and I have posted the slidecast from that event below so that you can listen and watch the slides! If yu want any of the resources, they are in this post.
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me.
I had the pleasure of delivering the Next steps in ICT for the Primary Language Classroom at University of Cumbria in Lancaster on Tuesday. I had delivered the same in Cambridge last month, and whilst the presentations were identical, the days were quite different with the delegates taking a greater lead this time in guiding where we went. That always keeps you on your toes!
Below are my presentations from the day - you can also find these on the event wiki which was set up for us to 'play around'.
Thank you to my 6 'victims' as I referred to them on Twitter; to my Tweetmates who responded to my request to say hello; and to CILT for giving me this opportunity to share my enthusiasm for ICT and Primary Languages with others.
One thing of which I have been reminded this weekend is how effective it is to let the kids do the evangelising for you when it comes to the use of new technologies.
It started at Teachmeet when we were brainstorming ideas for encouraging the reluctant teacher / colleague to get involved in exploring and using new tools. As I have grown in confidence with my use of technology and used it in the classroom, pupils have told their class teachers about things we have done and asked if they can use it in other areas of the curriculum. And I've been asked to tell the staff about podcasting and recording audio at a staffmeeting next month which is real progress.
That was Friday. Then on Saturday, my eldest asked me to help him make a Photostory for his Victorians topic. He found the pictures, worked on the transitions and cropping them to size, then worked on the script before recording the narration and composing some music as background. Isaac had got the idea from watching me learning how to make Photostory last year and has used them in a previous topics too - water and Egyptians. He's also become adept at searching for relevant Youtube video clips. And his use of technology has sparked an epidemic in his class. Once he'd shared his presentations, others in the class went home and emulated him.
On Sunday, I spent the afternoon making an animation with my other son Jude. He'd previously found plasticine left over from model making with Year 2 (we made monsters to describe in Spanish) and decided to make some models. Jude's a fan of 'show and tell' at school, and had taken a couple of the models in with him. When he got home he announced that he'd put his name down for show and tell next week to show 'the animation I'm going to make'. This was a week or so ago and he announced on Sunday that his slot was on Thursday so could we get on with it please!
Having got over probems with webcams in the house either missing driver CDs or being incompatible with my Mac, we used the iSight camera, ICan Animate and iMovie to produce the below. And Jude is very pleased with himself, having saved it onto a memory stick to take into school. And he's particularly pleased to have posted it onto Youtube. No doubt Jude too will start a spate of 'copying' but that's a good thing.
I'm really proud of my boys - and I'll continue to hope that their hard work inspires their peers.
And their teachers too! Isaac's teacher has been inspired to use Nintendo DS for Numeracy having watched his niece playing Brain Training so let's see what happens next.
Friday was a busy day, starting off in London with an animation course run by Oscar Stringer at Institute of Education.
Working in two groups, we spent the day developing our animation skills, producing two short animations from initial idea to finished film complete with transitions, titles, sound and music. We used ICanAnimate to capture the animation then exported the film to iMovie to 'finish' it. My group used my Mac
book and a Hue webcam - and it was lovely to meet the man behind Hue in the UK during the day as well (mine's on order from Amazon - went for the blue one in the end!) whilst the other group used an iMac and a driverless webcam.
James, Carolyn and I took our inspiration from the Mr Men. Firstly, our models followed the principles of Mr Men (which are also important principles for plasticine animation - big features, bold shapes and simple designs) and secondly, we made an animation with a message - suitable for PSHE and based
on friendship in the playground - a lonely girl on a bench wanting to join in with a game of ball.
The day reinforced all that I already knew about animating - the importance of keeping things simple, of planning well before you start, of working in collaboration and of how much fun it is!
We laughed so much making the animations - my group's is posted below. This is the English version. We recorded three different ending - with the bench saying THE END in English, French and Spanish - so that we can use it in our classrooms and dub it in different languages.
If you want to find out more about animating, I can't recommend Oscar's courses enough. He has a real gift for making it all seem very simple (and it is) and conveys the great potential that animation has as a tool for creativity, collaboration, innovation and progression. Check out his website and his blog to find out more.
Amazing what you can do with a carpet tile, some plasticine and an idea!
On Tuesday I made my way to Cambridge for the second time in four days to deliver a day's training on behalf of CILT at Anglia Ruskin University.
The course was entitled NEXT STEPS IN ICT FOR THE PRIMARY LANGUAGE CLASSROOM and promised to address collaborative working, whole class ICT, digital voicerecording and assessment amongst other things.
I had a lovely day with the delegates and hope that they all went away with one or to things to try out in their classrooms - there was great enthusiasm for wikis and Voki, and TTS should expect a few orders for their sound recording products in the near future - especially as I need a new Easispeak as I seem to have left mine behind :O(
I made a wiki for the event on which I've put all my presentations and also as a place for the delegates to 'play around' with using wikis. I did record the sessions - mostly!- but in the afternoon we went off at a tangent and the audio won't fit my presentations so i won't be making slidecasts of everything. However, I have put the presentations below as they are full of hyperlinks to useful resources.
Hope you find it useful!
And if you want to go on the course, it is repeated in Lancaster on 19th May. Contact CILT for more details!
NB the first slideshow actually starts on slide 18 as slide 22 was triggered to the first 20 slides as examples!
When I met up with Oscar Stringer at the Primary Languages Show in Liverpool, he told me about his recent experience of using Fuzzy Felts when animating with younger pupils, so I was really excited to see some of the work he did last week on his blog.
In Animation with Reception (Early Years), Oscar shares how he used the farmyard Fuzzy Felts with small groups of pupils for 20 or so minutes, making up simple stories involving the animals and the farmer, taking the required shots before using iMovie to create the finished product with sound.
Several things excited me about this!
Firstly, it's so simple - no models to make- just take the pieces out of the box and off you go!
Secondly, it worked with young pupils - I made plasticine monster models with Yr2 but wasn't brave enough to animate them - yet!
And possibly the most exciting thing for me as Oscar told me, and I can see the evidence in the clip, is that it makes for very simple stories of the kind that are so useful in language learning.
Do cows eat apples? No!
Do ducks eat apples? No!
Do dogs eat apples? NO!
Do horses eat apples? YES!
¿Eres mi mamá? ( the chick asks the cow.) ¡No! etc
Une vache habite un étang? Non!
Une poule habite un étang? Non!
Le fermier habite un étang? Non!
And anyone could make up such a story, young or old, using simple language to create their own version.
So pop by Oscar's blog and see if it inspires you too!
I'm off to ELC to get myself some fuzzy felts - the house set is on offer as are ballerinas and pirates!
I was very privileged to be invited to present this year at the Primary Languages Show in Liverpool, not once but twice!
I promised at my two sessions that I would post my notes and resources on my blog for people to download and use.
So here's my first presentation. If you download it, the hyperlinks all work - or did when I tried them. However, if they don't, remember that I have bookmarked all the sites to which I referred (and more) on Delicious tagged PLS09 - http://delicious.com/lisibo/pls09
*cross post with Animation for Education NING *
Having attended animation workshops, made a few plasticine model animations and talked up the use of animation in PLL (primary language learning), three weeks ago I decided to take the plunge and let the kids show me what they could do!
Year 4 are currently studying a Unit of the QCA Key Stage 2 Spanish Scheme of work that is based on the Saint Saëns musical suite, Le Carnaval des Animaux. I think it's a good unit as it allows lots of different cross curricular links to be made - you can read about it on my blog if you're interested! I had the idea whilst sitting in one of Oscar's workshops of using plastic animals to create an animated 'carnival' as an end of term project for the class - fun but also has a various purposes - enhancing linguistic skills as well as technological ones.
First step was working out how to do it! I bought a MacBook about six weeks ago and, after much deliberation as to whether I was willing to allow 31 9year olds to touch my lovely white Mac, I decided to be brave and use it. I had thought I might need to buy a webcam as the ones in school don't seem to work (not been used for a while ;o) ). However, the Macbook has an iSight camera built in and I wanted to get on with it. Next, I raided the Nursery class for some animals - there were Duplo ones as well but I liked the more 'realistic' looking ones, especially as some had adult and baby sized ones.
Next, I set up the equipment before the class came in and hit my first snag - how to make the animals seen. The iSight was focused higher that the animals and the only way to get the models in camera was to either incline the screen towards the table - not really an option - or to raise the stage which I did with two trays, covered with paper, and the MacBook as near as possible to the trays. I did wonder if the iSight could be 'zoomed' but a quick call to someone in the know told me that I would just have to make the best of it. (I got a tip later that there is something called iGlasses that will make it zoom - I'll be investigating before next time - ta Andrew!) Background was paper on a freestanding whiteboard, as close to the table as possible.
The class arrived and of course, everyone was fascinated by the set up and started crowding around. i like the enthusiasm but it did make some of them a little deaf to instructions! Having explained what we were going to do and how we might achieve it, the pupils got into pairs and chose their animal from the selection. Most had a couple of models for their chosen animal. We discussed our idea and how the 'story' might go, deciding that all the animals are on their way to the carnival; I left it to each group to decide how their animals might move / act on the way, so some are walking, others so excited that they're dancing and the hyena and the tiger are having a scrap!
I demonstrated what they needed to do using the elephants, emphasising small movements, 12 pictures for one second of film and instructing them to keep the animals far back on the stage to make sure they're as big as possible. Then, whilst I taught the rest of the class, I sent one pair at a time to the back table where they animated their section of the film, with the instruction to call the next group when their animals reached the centre of the stage.
The first morning we managed to do about six sets of animals and when we reviewed the footage, there were some speedy animals! A bit too much excitement I think for some to remember all the instructions.
As I have the class for two hours each week for Spanish and RE, I had to pack up the stuff until the next week which had it's problems as the backdrop had been drawn on by the next week, and everything needed resetting. Once done though, the second lot of groups paid more heed to the need for small movements and lots of shots, and by the end of the morning we had an animation!
Today we added 'finishing touches' - titles and credits, sound track and sound effects, and voiceovers using iMovie. It's amazing how long it took to 'finish' 1 minute 20 seconds of film! But then again, it was our first go and there was an air of general madness at school today ;o) ( rain and nearing the end of term!)
Finally, I've just shared it to Youtube from iMovie.
So, reflecting on the experience, I'd say the following;
It's our first attempt - please bear that in mind!!
By the end, the class had grasped the basics so the case of the flying pigs will not happen next time.
Background could've been brighter - we didn't want to detract from the animals but we'd use scenery next time.
I'd definitely want to be able to zoom in / out next time as the animals don't fill the screen.
Although I ended up with a splitting headache - hence my earlier tweet! -it was worth it! The class belongs to the ICT coordinator who was intrigued by what we were doing and several other members of staff came to have a nose at what we were doing. And the class were full of enthusiasm - they increasingly gave constructive criticism and helped one another, and were desparate to see the finished product.
So, here's the premiere (el estreno in Spanish) of El Carnaval de los Animales.
Please leave comments - the kids will love that! and be honest in a kind way please ;o)
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The Language and Film Talent Awards (LAFTAs) is a competition for 13-21 year olds, run by CILT, the National Centre for Languages. Over the course of the competition, CILT asked young people to send in two-minute videos showing why languages are important.
CILT received over 160 entries from all across the UK, showing why we need languages: from being lost in a foreign country, to meeting the love of your life, to being attacked by sharks, cannibals or dragons…
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On Monday, Comenius West Midlands held its Primary Languages Conference at the Novotel in Wolverhampton. Sandwiched between keynotes by Joe Brown from CILT that involved song rhyme and lots of action, and Steven Fawkes from ALL who thrilled us with his 'Banane', delegates had to choose sessions from a range including :
After a conversation with a few of us in Nottingham at the UK National eTwinning Conference yesterday, and a crash course in NING building from NING queen Jo Rhys Jones, Oscar Stringer has created a NING network called Animation for Education for those wanting to discover more about animation in education.
As Oscar explains in the site's blurb, he aims for it to be -
A place to share ideas, thoughts and examples of work. With the aim to help you develop confidence in using animation in the classroom.
So, why not do as Isabelle Jones and SpookingDorf did after reading my tweet about it and join? You've got nothing to lose and lots to gain :o)
I'm currently in Nottingham at the NCSL at the British eTwinning Conference.
This morning I went to a workshop by Oscar Stringer on animation - the theory being that it will become ingrained in my brain if I do the workshop enough time ;o)
Here's the video I made with Jo Rhys-Jones and a lovely lady called Sue based on minibeasts. Hope you enjoy it - we're very proud.
I spent this afternoon at the aptly named Beaumanor Hall near Loughborough in the company of teachers of pupils with special needs, drawn from both special and mainstream schools. I had been asked by the British Council to present a case study on eTwinning as par
t of the afternoon's proceeding led by Lorna Belsey and Tom Birtwistle, and I was happy to do so.
After a delicious lunch - my healthy first course of mackerel and salad was followed by not-so-healthy bread and butter pudding - although the bread seemed to be brown so that must be good??- we adjourned to the ICT suite where Lorna explained Comenius and the ISA awards. Then it was by go to present a case study about last year's project at WCPS - Somos lo que celebramos - and to share some ideas of how eTwinning might work for them, and some ideas of tools that could be used.
You can access the presentation and some of the documents in a previous post, but here are some links that I mentioned that you might wish to investigate.
British Council website
eTwinning home page
eTwinning portal
Whitehouse Common Primary School website
Colegio Público César Hurtado Delicado website (etwinning section)
Voki
Voicethread
Voices of the World wiki of previous months' activities
Euro 08 project
Animation
David S Stewart's interview about Special Schools and eTwinning
Nick Falk and Anne Jakins' presentation about eTwinning at Sackville School (with SEN pupils)
Wishing you all happy eTwinning! :o)
Another of today's discoveries was a bit of a surprise.
In amongst the Spanish rhymes and songs, I came across some videos with the prefix 'NannyMóvil'. Reading the 'About this video' information I discovered that educamobile is someone called Alfonso from Barcelona and makes 'Animaciones, canciones y cuentos en los teléfonos móviles de los padres, para distraer a sus hijos pequeños.' (children oriented songs, animations and tales for parents' mobile phones to distract small children.)
You can watch an interview with educamobile explaining and demonstrating the idea here - it's in Catalan though! - I knew it was worth learning :o)
He has posted some of the videos on Youtube and they do look interesting. You can download the animations and songs etc to your mobile in Spain at a cost of 2€ +IVA (although there is a promotion at present to get 'la granja' free)- there's an SMS number to contact. Doesn't seem to work from England - I'm investigating how you might be able to download here. giving access to the menu of downloads - There's also a wap address http://wap.nannymovil.com - can't make it connect on my phone though :o(
So, I have another plan! Using Zamzar, I'm going to convert the videos from Youtube and then Bluetooth them to my 'phone. Working out the format is the fun bit!
But even if that fails, the videos could be useful in class. The animations are cute and there are several types. There are the Nannyanimaciones that could be used to present vocabulary. There's one of 'bichos' (bugs) that would capture the imagination of some of the little lads (and possibly a couple of the young ladies!) I teach, and then there's 'animales de la sabana' featuring wild animals. Below is the 'la granja' video.
I do think that to maintain attention you would need to selectively show the clips as they could become quite monotonous unless you play a game with them or just show a bit of the video - and the music could be a little more varied.
Then there are Nannycanciones like Que llueva and then Nannycuentos.
The cuento I found on Youtube was Caperucita Roja.
As the 'blurb' says -
'Aquí mostramos a los personajes del cuento de Caperucita: el lobo, la abuelita, el cazador, y la caperucita. El cuento del móvil es mucho mejor. En este video no figuran ni los efectos especiales, ni los diálogos y algunas de las escenas que figuran en el móvil' -
Because there is no dialogue, this would be a great inspiration/backdrop for pupils to retell the story in as simple terms as they wish - could be just naming characters for younger pupils up to older pupils (beyond primary) using more complicated language; perhaps it could be used to inspire a cross Key Stage / transition project? See what you think - I like the bold characters, especially the wolf dressed as Grandma!
You can find out more on the website - http://www.nannymovil.com
On the site you'll also find some print and colour sheets and dice to download and make linked to videos. It's new site so some parts are under construction - I've emailed about the possibility of downloading outside Spain so will keep you posted!
Having spent all weekend working hard (honest!) at the eTwinning conference in Nottingham, the last thing I fancied today was an Inset day. This was partly due to fatigue but also as I didn't want to lose the thoughts that are still floating around my mind following the excellent CPD over the last few days. So many ideas, so little time! A further complicating factor was the need to produce evidence for our school 'Curriculum for the 21st Century' display that each Head had to put up for today's proceedings. Flattered to be asked but lots of work - hence the Twittering about laminating.
Despite my misgivings, I have to say that I enjoyed today and found it quite exciting!
The theme of the day was 'A curriculum for the 21st Century' and the day was actually an Inset for our cluster of local schools based around the Creative Curriculum.
We started the day with a definition of creativity - 'bringing into being something that did not exist before' - before moving on to consider our aims for our pupils, deciding that it's not content as much as attributes and skills that are at the heart of what we want. What really excited me was that the things being said fitted so well with what I had been hearing (and agreeing with!) in Nottingham, particularly in George Glass's presentation about collaborative communities, raising self esteem, nurturing empathetic youngsters who can work cooperatively in teams, becoming effective learners and local and global citizens.
The idea of working creatively was likened to building a house - the house won't be bui
lt by leaving a pile of bricks on the plot - you need to put them all together. There was also the analogy of a tree with content as the leaves, and attributes as the roots (teamwork / reflective learners / self managers / creative participants / independent enquirers), held together by the trunk of learning experiences.
And the picture I liked best was about throwing things! If you throw a dead bird, there are laws etc that make it possible to calculate how far it will travel, but if the bird is alive, there is no way of knowing. The vision was of the creative curriculum as a way to launch live birds into the world, hoping that they will soar , becoming things of beauty rather than plummeting to the ground. Perhaps I'm just a sucker for a good analogy, but this made sense to me!
I can see that thinking creatively and given pupils more responsibility for their learning is desirable - we want children to remember things - what's more memorable than finding out for yourself, and enjoying the process? I could have downloaded Oscar Stringer's notes on 
animation and learned that way, and without the opportunity to experience the workshop, that would have taken me through the necessary steps. However, being there, hearing the instructions first hand whilst watching what to do and then working with a group of people to create and animate our own ideas was so much more memorable.
We were allowed to play around with the plasticine (and we did!) without being told off - how often do we give kids something that they're dying to play with (as a language teacher, I'm thinking of dictionaries), only to tell them that they've got to do it our way? Wouldn't it be better to let the pupils 'play' first and discover for themselves with guidance where necessary?
As a Primary Languages teacher, I think I've become increasingly creative in my teaching, looking for ways to embed the subject across the curriculum, and I believe that's one of the reasons why I was asked to present some ideas and evidence for the display. It was good to talk to teachers from other schools about eTwinning, International School Award, Voices of the World, EDL, links with Canada and USA as well as Spanish from 3-11, and to share some ideas that they could use in their schools. And, in the end, it wasn't too onerous to miss lunch and stand by our display talking to colleagues, because I wholeheartedly believe that being creative is the way to go.
Just rushed out of Oscar Stringer's workshop to upload our finished animation (it is coffee time so I'm not being rude!)
The idea of our animation was as a promotional video short for the Voices of the World NING group that Sharon began following a previous eTwinning conference, hence the multilingual big mouths.
This was made by Sharon (Scotland), Elissa (UK via Australia), Kurt (Germany), Nikolay (Bulgaria) and me (UK / Spain) in about an hour and a half (although we fiddled and tweaked for longer!) and I can see it as something that I could now use within my practice. We talked about how we might use this kind of animation in our classrooms, specifically in the context of eTwinning, and suggested that an animation could be started in one country, sent to a partner school for music and sound to be added and perhaps sent on for subtitles, credits etc, thus making it a collaborative project. That's a really exciting idea that I may well be pursuing so watch this space!!
I'm blogging from the Internet hub at the NCSL in Nottingham as I'm attending an etwinning conference this weekend. For those who have never had the pleasure, it's a lovely place - Molten Brown toiletries, a maid to make your bed, complimentary drinks and delicious three course meals.
I've met lots of interesting people from across Europe; England, Scotland, Wales, France, Spain, Bulgaria, Greece, Italy, Czech Republic, Germany, Slovakia, Sweden, Finland etc. After a drinks reception on Friday with people bringing items of food and drink that represent their countries, there was a conference dinner and then today we've got down to the 'work'.
I've been involved in eTwinning for the last year or so, completing a project called Somos lo que celebramos at Whitehouse Common with Colegio Público César Hurtado Delicado. I spoke about this project at Joe Dale's conference a couple of weeks ago (see my blog post on Talkabout Primary MFL) and was sent to this conference to represent Comenius West Midlands, the idea being that I would find out further information about eTwinning links across regions and countries, and also make new friends and potential contacts for future projects.
There have been sessions about the eTwinning portal and ICT and eTwinning. the main part of the day has been spent in one of three workshops taking an ICT theme and showing how it could be used for eTwinning. I've been attending the Animation for Education session lead by Oscar Stringer. In my next post, I'll share the outcomes of the sessions in which I worked with four other delegates and some plasticine to make a short film.
eTwinning is a great way to address the Intercultural understanding strand of the KS2 Framework, and is also a great source of cross curricular activities, as the project between WCPS and CPCHD showed. But more of that tomorrow - the clocks do change tonight but it's still tiring work being at a conference ;-)
