I’m all for technology.  Really, I am.  I have a Facebook, a Twitter, a blog, and three e-mail addresses.  I’m rarely without my phone.  Still, like many people, I think there’s a point when people get too excited about technology, and they need to step back and consider whether it’s really making their lives easier.

Case in point:  A few weeks ago I had to do a “multimedia project” for my Spanish class.  The project basically consisted of talking in Spanish for four minutes, and accompanying the narration with a photo slideshow.  Okay, I get that our teacher wants us to learn to actually speak in Spanish.  That’s understandable.  But how does putting together a slideshow help me learn Spanish?  That’s right.  It doesn’t.  I learned to put together a slideshow in fourth grade.  If my teacher wanted to grade us on our speaking, he could have either had us just record audio without the pictures (which would still require technology, but would be a more sensible use of it), or he could have just had us talk and listened.

To complicate things further, we were required to use a program called Photostory to put together said slideshow.  Photostory is a Windows program; there is no Mac version.  So, basically, unless you happen to own a Windows laptop with an attached microphone, you had to use one of the 15 computers in the language lab in the Arts and Science building to complete the project.  Once again, how does using a certain slideshow program help me learn Spanish?  I could have done it just as easily using iMovie or some other program that’s already on my computer and much easier to use.

After I made my four-minute slideshow, I tried to upload it to Blackboard like my teacher instructed.  Guess what?  The file was too big.  So then I spent *another* 20 minutes doing some creative editing so the file would fit. Needless to say, I was more than a little annoyed with the Spanish 1200 coordinator and her pointless endorsement of technology by the time I finally got all that crap turned in.

Moral of the story?  When homework was on paper, there was one excuse:

The dog ate it.

When homework is digital, the excuses are infinite–not to mention a lot more legitimate:

The printer was out of ink/out of paper/disconnected.

The file was too big to post online/e-mail/save on a flash drive.

The computer crashed right before I clicked “save.”

The file was saved in a format this computer can’t read.

This computer doesn’t support that program.

THIS COMPUTER SIMPLY DOES NOT WORK.

Technology has bugs.  Paper, well, doesn’t.  I’m not saying technology doesn’t have its uses in education, because it certainly does.  But teachers and people who plan classes should think twice about whether whatever pretty new program they have will actually help students learn, or just add an unnecessary amount of stress and headaches.

Melkote is a small temple town, just over 150 km – two hours drive – from Bangalore. It is home to a couple of Narasimha temples, a large Iyengar community and lip-smacking puliyogare (tamarind rice, for you unenlightened souls, but calling it that really takes away from the drop-dead spicy yumminess of it).

We’d heard that the temple closes by 1 and planned to get there early in the day. Weekend mornings being what they are and Bangalore traffic being what it is, not to mention having to stop for thatte idli at Bidadi on the way, it is well past noon when we reach Melkote. The temple, it turns out, is open till 2.30 p.m. or even later.

And then a quick walk around town, a puliyogare pit-stop and some photographs later, we head towards the Narasimha temple on top of the hill. There are no large restaurants in the town (or I am told, places to stay), but there are several eateries known as “mess” which offer delicious local food. The steps to the temple begin from near the water tank, known locally as the kalyani.

The banks of the kalyani are abuzz with activity; bangle-sellers and coconut-vendors, pilgrims and locals, women carrying their clothes for washing at the tank, young children running up to the camera with a smile and a pose.

The friends we are with huff and puff their way up the 300 odd steps; V and I sit on the steps and watch people. There is a cool breeze and a great view from where we are sitting. The old man near where we sit clangs on his metal plate every so often to attract the attention of passersby; he is offended when a group of women ignore him and give alms to the women sitting next to him. The kid with the little shruti box is busy playing; his mother chides him from across the steps and he absent-mindedly chants govinda, govinda even as he is eying the frisky goat, his playing companion.

Fathers are carrying their small children on their shoulders, the mark of Vishnu bright and shiny on both foreheads; the mothers can barely carry themselves up the steep steps. There is a doli lying neglected on one corner, meant for people who are too old or infirm to walk up. Nobody is using it though – it is as if being carried up equals a serious loss of brownie points in the eyes of the god siting in the temple on top of the hill.

Our friends join us and we head to the kalyani for some much-needed rest (heh!). That is when we meet Arun; Puneet Rajkumar devotee, body building ustaad, aspiring superstar, eager model – all of 12 years. He poses, and poses, and poses – alone, with friends, smiling, frowning, jumping. His friends squirm with the awkwardness of that age; Arun takes of his shirt, flexes his (non-existent) biceps and says, take a photo of my body. After each shot, he looks into the LCD and proudly says, HERO.

It is time to leave then and we head back into town, to the place of the original puliyogare halt. More puliyogare is consumed, as is curd rice and sakkare pongal. The lady at the cart tells her friends in the neighboring stall, these girls came in the morning, they liked my food so much, they have come again with their friends. Indeed, aunty.

The drive on the Mysore road, the several pit-stops for fuel (of the food variety) and the friendly folks of Melkote – definitely worth another visit soon.

(More photographs from Melkote here)

Viewbook PhotoStory 2009 Winners Exhibition…

An inspiring exhibition with the works by Francesco Giusti and David Favrod

Photo’s: @Kahmann Gallery

I : Viewbook Photostory Kahmann Gallery

1. Child Solider
2. Child abandonment
3. Child Abuse
4. Child Abuse, Neglect

My two week trip to US was decided at a very short notice over what was supposed to be a regular status review meeting on a Monday evening. I was asked to be present in US office the following Monday to finalize 2010 budgets and plans for a newly kicked-off project. Flights were fully booked for the weekend and hence I was forced to leave a day early on Friday. I considered it as a good omen for my secret desire of getting a weekend free for shooting the autumn colors in US. October was over and so was the fall season. Though my colleagues from US had already warned me that I was reaching a week late to witness the colorful autumn, I still had hopes to catch at least some glimpses of colorful foliage of the passing autumn and I was hoping to spend some time over the weekend shooting for the same. 

We landed at Philadelphia airport around 3:30 pm on the Saturday. It was drizzling outside. The skies were dark and the forecast for the next day was same – overcast skies with no sign of sunshine and intermittent drizzles were to be expected. Temperature was rushing downwards to cross the zero degree C mark. It was a tell-tale sign that winter season had already set-in. It became dark by the time I checked-in to my hotel room an hour later. Yet my hopes were still alive.

Like an obedient child the Sunday behaved exactly as forecast by the weather bureau. My colleague called me around 10:00 am to say that given the weather forecast I should forget my plans to go out for the autumn shoot and instead visit the King of Prussia Mall that was a few blocks away from my hotel. I was left with no choice but to spend my time in what is termed as one of the largest shopping malls in the US with over 400 stores spread over 2,793,200 sq feet of retail space.

My cell phone rang at 3:00 pm while I was sitting in the food court nursing my tired feet and bored eyes after the three hours of aimless walk around the King of Prussia mall and feeding my empty stomach with the second six incher veggie-lover subway. My colleague’s excited voice over the phone told me that weather bureau had just announced that there will be bright sunshine for about two hours beginning 4:00 pm and therefore he is coming over to the mall to pick me up and take me to the Valley Forge for the autumn shoot. My heart almost jumped into my mouth and I rushed to the exit of the mall and waited there for my colleague to arrive.

Valley Forge is a National Historical Park in the state of Pennsylvania. While we were driving towards the park, the cover of clouds started dispersing and the sunshine was spreading over the park area.

We were greeted by the colorful boundary wall of trees as soon as we turned right on Valley Forge Road from the expressway and were approaching the visitor’s center.

There was vast open grass land on one side of the car park.

On the other side were well maintained walking tracks for joggers and bicycle lanes for bikers.

Valley Forge National Historical Park is the site where the Continental Army spent the winter of 1777–1778 near Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, during the American Revolutionary War. The National Historical Park preserves the site and interprets the history of the Valley Forge encampment. Originally Valley Forge State Park, it became a national park in 1976. The Park contains historical buildings, recreated encampment structures, memorials, museums, and recreation facilities. (Please refer http://www.nps.gov/vafo/historyculture/index.htm for more details).

We took the driving directions from the Visitor’s Center and started moving over to the recreated encampment structures.

We soon reached a site where Gen. Peter Muhlenberg’s Brigade anchored the outer line of defense.

The park authorities have recreated the log huts and young people in military costume are posted there to recreate those times. 

Army records and eyewitness accounts speak of a skilled and capable force in charge of its own destiny. Rather than wait for deliverance, the army located supplies, built log cabins to stay in, constructed makeshift clothing and gear, and cooked subsistence meals of their own concoction. Provisions, though never abundant in the early months of the encampment, were available.

Women followed the army to be with their husbands and contribute actively to the cause. The women present at Valley Forge included hundreds of enlisted men’s wives who followed the army year round, and some general officers’ wives on extended visits. The army compensated full-time women followers for rendering such valuable services as sewing, laundering, and nursing.

Under the direction of military engineers, the men built a city of 2,000-odd huts laid out in parallel lines along planned military avenues. The troops also constructed miles of trenches, five earthen forts, and a state-of-the-art bridge over the Schuylkill River. 

We were amazed to see how meticulously the National Park Authorities had re-created the historic times in such a manner that the young generation can really see and feel the history. At the same time they had ensured that the young generation gets attracted to the park by creating sports facilities such as jogging, hiking, and biking. 

Soon the two hours of sun-shine were coming to an end. We decided to visit a deer park on the way and then get out of the park before it started getting dark.

We left the park soon after we spotted the deer but my heart was still roaming in the park.

Thank you God for giving me those two precious hours of sunshine and such an amazingly beautiful park nearby the hotel I was staying in.

Magnolia, my new PukiPuki, came to me from a previous owner as a Flora fullset. She arrived on Tuesday and it was love at first sight. Her box opening and her introduction to Shiro are in this post.

Initially, Shiro was intrigued by the box. Luts is the name of another doll company and he became suspicious.

Aegis decided to watch as well. She had just been unboxed a few minutes prior. Review of her coming soon!

Box in a box. The PukiPuki box is actually really nice; it’s shaped like a hollow book.

It shimmers beautifully in all kinds of colors.

Shiro: It matches me.

!!

Nekkid puki ^^; She stands incredibly well, especially considering how tiny her feet are!

Luckily, the other side of the box contains lots of clothes and parts for my new girl. I was also lucky that the wig and eyes that I ordered arrived in time for Lia. She came with gray eyes and a blond wig, which I swapped for dark blue/green eyes and a brown wig.

Here she is with her hair and eyes and wearing the Flora outfit.

Magnolia: Is it you, my prince?

Shiro: You must be from my world, but I don’t recognize you.

Lia: Forgive me for taking this form. I am Magnolia, the flower from the tree under which you slept. When you were gone, I searched many days and weeks for you. Forgive me, I know I’m not worthy.

Shiro: Stand up, Magnolia. There’s no need to apologize.

Shiro: You followed me into exile and for that I am thankful.

Lia: Shiro, you are the same and yet you’re different. Why are your eyes so sad?

Shiro: My protector and I were alone for a long time. But you are here now.

Shiro: Let me protect you like I once did, and this world won’t be so bad after all.

<3

You can expect to see Lia a lot more in the future!

Yesterday while attending the MITC Conference at Lake of the Ozarks I enjoyed listening to Dr. Ohler’s keynote as well as attending his session on New Media Narrative in the Classroom.

Dr. Ohler’s has an extensive collection of digital storytelling resources on his website. Here’s a few of my takeaways:

• Make sure the quality of the story doesn’t get lost in the production. Story Maps are a good start, but using a Visual Portrait of the Story is even better. See also Ken Adams’ Story Spine.
• Music will override images when setting the mood for the story. It is the adjectives and adverbs of the digital story. Choose it carefully.
• The sound quality is greatly improved if a wireless collar microphone is used when capturing video from a distance.
• Creative Commons has added more tabs to it’s search page, including Google Images, which high school students seem to favor.
• Stories should be 2-5 minutes in length.

We currently have several high school teachers working on digital storytelling projects with their students. For their projects, the students are using Creative Commons licensed media, that is media that is not copyright protected, but that is licensed with permission for use. I’ve been bookmarking the Fusion: Finding Copyright Free Media on the students’ stations, as well as modeling locating, downloading, and crediting sources.  The students are creating their own media as well using digital cameras, headsets, and Flip video cameras. We’ve required a  contract signed by both students and parents when checking out any equipment to take home.

We are using Photostory for projects involving just images. This tool is free, easy to use, and automatically adds animation to turn the collection of images, text, narration, and music into a video. The built-in music selection is a big time saver. Most students seems to be able to find an option that work well with their presentations. The recording of narration is easy using the new headsets that we checked out from the library, but can be a bit intimidating for students the first time. For projects involving video, we are using Windows Movie Maker, another free tool. You can see the Fusion: Digital Storytelling webpage for handouts, examples, links to software downloads, templates, etc.

The students have created project folders to store all their media, the project file, a document crediting sources, and the production file. When it’s showtime, the teacher can access a student’s documents folder, open the project folder, and then open the production file to play the story in Windows Media Player. This single file can then be uploaded to a video sharing site, such as Vimeo, and then linked to embedded on a class website.

The story below was created by one of Mrs. Hession’s Child Development students. This class did a great job on their first storytelling project. I appreciate Mrs. Hession’s willingness to take a risk, try something new.

Castagnata 2009 – Sampierdarena

cine poza nu măreşte.. degeaba “se mai priveşte”!!! )

color:

_______________________________________________________

un fel de sepia:

दिवाळीच्या दिवसात घरात न रहाण्याचा रिवाज या वर्षी पाळता आला नाही. प्रथम व्यवसायानिमित्त देशाबाहेर रहाणे झाले. मग परत आल्यावर तीन-चार कुटुंबातील लहान-मोठया सर्वांना सुट्टी मिळून एकत्र भारतदर्शन करण्यास हे दिवस बरे असतात असे जाणवल्यामुळे दिवाळीची सुट्टी घराबाहेर असेच समीकरण झाले होते. या वर्षी Swine-Flue देवतेच्या कृपेने मुलांच्या सुट्या कधीच संपल्या व आम्ही पुण्यातच होतो. मुंबईहून पुण्यात नुकतेच स्थलांतरीत झालो असल्यामुळे आम्हाला हे शहर नविनच होते. ’तेथे’ हरवलेली मराठी संस्कृती येथे ठायीठायी भेटत होती. मग कोणीतरी सांगितले की दिवाळीच्या दिवसात पहाटॆ पुण्यात सारसबागेत पणत्यांची आरास करतात. लगेच आमच्या फोटो काढण्यास आसुसलेल्या स्वार्‍या सज्ज झाल्या. 

पहाटे साडेपाचला निघण्याचा हुकुम गृहमंत्र्यांनी जारी केला होता त्यावेळेबरहुकुम प्रस्थान केले. जसजशी सारसबाग जवळ येऊ लागली तसतसे रस्त्यालगतचे पार्किंग फुल्ल दिसू लागले. जरा आश्चर्यच वाटू लागले. पुण्यात येवढया लौकर हे अपेक्षित नव्हते. त्यामुळे पहिला मोकळा slot मिळल्यावर गाडी पार्क करून पायउतार झालो. थोडे पुढे गेल्यावर महालक्ष्मीच्या मंदिराचा कळस दिसला. देवीचे दर्शन घेऊन पुढे जावे असा विचार करित होतो. पण दाराबाहेरील भलीमोठी रांग पाहून पुन्हा आश्चर्याचा धक्का बसला. विचार रद्द केला. बाहेरूनच हात जोडले व सारसबागेकडे मोर्चा वळवला.

सारसबागेच्या दारापासून गर्दी तर होतीच. अगदी “सवाई गंधर्व”ला रमणबागेत असते तशी. रेटारेटी नाही पण जरा थोडे जास्त इकडॆतिकडे हलले तर कोणाला तरी धक्का लागेल येवढी. जवळूनच स्पिकर्स टेस्ट केल्याचा आवाजही येत होता. तरुणाईच्या जोडीने बुजुर्गही तेवढेच होते. सर्वचजण सणाचे ठेवणीचे कपडे घालून सजले होते. कदाचित म्हणूनच बुजुर्गही तरुणच दिसत होते. ती तरुणाई अंगावर झेलत झेलत तळ्यातील गणपतीच्या कमानीतून आत शिरलो. मंदिराभोवताली खरच पणत्यांची व रांगोळ्यांची आरास मांडली होती. माझा कॅमेरा आता “सुटला” होता.

आत गाभार्‍यात श्रींचे अभ्यंगस्नान चालू होते. अतिशय देखणी उजव्या सोंडेची मूर्ती आहे. “कृपया मूर्तीचे फोटो काढू नये” असे बोर्ड दिसल्यामुळे कॅमेरा म्यान केला व श्रींना मनसोक्त मनात साठवून घेतले. मग पुन्हा रांगोळ्यांचे फोटो काढण्यास बाहेर पडलो.

भोवताली लावलेल्या पणत्या वा‍र्‍यामुळे विझत होत्या. एक पणती विझली कि ती पुन्हा चेतवण्यास दहा हात पुढे सरसावत होते व सर्व दिवे तेवते ठेवत होते. ते पाहून मन आत कुठेतरी हलत होते, डोलत होते व आतली पणती चेतवत होते.

आता देवळातून बाहेर पडून सारस बागेतील तळ्यात फुललेली कमळे टिपत टिपत पुढे सरत होतो.

Amit Kakade (Flute) & Prasad Gondkar (Sitar)

यशवंतराव चव्हाण प्रतिष्ठान प्रायोजित कार्यक्रमाची मान्यवरांच्या उपस्थितीत सुरुवात झाली होती.  बरेच लोक उपस्थित होते. मनापासून दाद देत होते.

Babasaheb Purandare & Mangesh Tendulkar

सकाळच्या रागांनंतर “घनःश्याम सुंदरा”चे स्वर बासरी व सतारीवर आळवले जाऊ लागले. पाखरे आपापली घरटी सोडून आकाशात झेपावली होती.

पूर्वॆला उषेचा रक्तिमा पसरला होता व मन्दिराच्या दारात आता भाविकांची दाटी झाली होती. 

आमची पाऊले दिवाळीच्या फराळावर आडवा हात मारायला परत फिरली, मनात कुठेतरी हरवलीशी वाटणारी लहानपणीची दिवाळी पुन्हा एकदा भेटल्याचे समाधान घेऊन.

I came across this little pumpkin while I was grocery shopping awhile ago. It was too cute to resist! So I brought it home and asked my figures what they thought of it.

Pumpkin…

Miku…

Pumpkin + Miku =

Spotted.

Inspection…

Free Hugs!

Serenade!!

Pumpkin gets revenge for being sat on.

Shiro’s not really sure what to do with it.

Head?

Not a pumpkin (I just wanted to take advantage of the leaves that I took the time to collect on the way home from school)!

The tree that I got most of the leaves from.

The pumpkin will be sure to make other appearances in the future!

Shiro is a creature of the light. He’s a little star in my heart, a brightness that never diminishes. The sun is his sister. I took him outside today so that he could persuade her to stay strong in the face of the approaching winter.

Can I wait here until she comes back again? Maybe she’s hiding in the clouds because nobody bothers to pay attention to her anymore. It must be cold and lonely out here without anyone to talk to.

It’s okay. She’s worked hard the whole summer and she just needs some rest.

She’s like you: she never gets cold.

Por sus tres años de experiencia en geología (entiéndase recolectar tierra debajo de las uñas y traer cada piedra que ve en la calle a la casa) y tunelería (entiéndase pasarse por entre las patas de las sillas del comedor), Rafa fue llamado a dirigir a un grupo de turistas que deseaban visitar la mina de oro del Sexmo en Zaruma.

Sin perder el tiempo, Rafa se puso sus botas azules y su casco anaranjado y quedó listo para cumplir con su misión.

El grupo de turistas se reunió a la entrada de la mina y se puso a disposición del guía. Y la primera disposición de Rafa fue que todos entraran a la mina; contrario a toda razón, Rafa no fue el primero en entrar sino el último. ¿Por qué será?

Acaso seré tontito... que entren primero ellos; así, si se cae la montaña, que se caiga sobre ellos.

Este es el grupo de incautos turistas, ya dentro de la mina.

¿Qué pasó? Sigan, sigan, que yo desde aquí atrás los cuido.

¡¡Uy!! ¿Qué pisé?

¡¿Quién metió un perro aquí?!

Cuando habían recorrido ya media montaña, Rafa se acordó de algo…

Cierto que aquí dicen que pasan cosas raras y se ven duendes y fantasmas... A mi que ni se me asomen.

¡¡Ay!! ¿Qué fue ese ruido?

Creo que vino de por allá

¿Si ven esa luz?

Yo mejor me voy de aquí, ya me estoy empezando a sentir extraño :S

La salida al fin. ¡Me salvé!

¿Y los turistas?

¿Y el guía? Nos dejó viendo esta pared aquí y se fue...

Tres horas después los turistas abandonados fueron rescatados de la mina. Asustados y confundidos, nadie preguntaba por el guía, solamente daban gracias de que habían salido ilesos. ¿Y Rafa? se preguntarán… Cuentan las malas lenguas que salió en despavorida carrera y que a ese paso, ya debe de andar por Guayaquil.

Una típica tarde en nuestra casa involucra a Rafa y Luciana jugando juntos y tramando pillerías; unas organizadas por Rafa y otras por Luciana. Si, Luciana también organiza las travesuras. Si no me quieren creer, aquí les presento las pruebas.

Luciana: Rafa ven, te cuento un secreto...

Rafa: No Luciana, no me parece bien...

Luciana piensa: "La verdad es que no entiendo por qué a Rafa no le gusta mi idea"

Rafa: Es que todo nos puede salir mal ñaña... y nos podemos meter en muchos líos. Tienes que escucharme, yo soy tu hermano mayor y tengo más experiencia.

Luciana: ¡¡Psst!! Este Rafa es un aguado... Todavía no entiendo por qué no le gusta mi idea, si es a prueba de tontos.

De qué travesura nos habremos librado esta vez… A lo mejor a la próxima Rafa no será tan sensato y nos metemos en un gran lío. De seguro si eso pasa, la cámara estará lista para capturar el momento y compartirlo con ustedes. ¡Hasta la próxima!

Agradecimientos: A Cristina por darme la idea general de esta fotohistoria.

Anthony Evans of the Redbridge Primary ICT team posted an excellent google presentation now called 25 things to do with a Digital Image which has grown from a starting point of 5 tips.
The suggestions cover a wide range of applications and strategies which will develop Primary children’s learning and certainly motivate them.  I loved the idea of Motivator which allows classes to make motivational posters and how this could be used in class but also (with my old role of Deputy Head in mind) it could make some excellent posters around attendance and friendship.

With my literacy hat on I would recommend those who have not worked with Comic life to look at the software which allows the user to “create astounding comics, beautiful picture albums, how-to guides and more.”
If you have not had time to visit the slides I would recommend it.

In this post I want to explore one of the approaches which I submitted – the use of Photostory. This is not about suggesting that this is something new more that this is something which has had an impact in a small number of Primary schools. Unfortunately there are too many schools which do not do sufficient work using images and I believe that this old favourite remains the most appriopriate path for them to take.

This example has the use of images from children’s storyboarding to create an oral presentation using Photostory. The use of storyboards allows children to develop their ideas before venturing onto the rocky path of planning and is a one way of developing quality talk in the classroom.  The movement from the study of a high quality text through to writing is one which all too often hurried and ICT is all too often used as the medium for the outcome. The piece of  work which makes me consider the value of this approach took place in Year 3 working on the Vikings.  The children had read a range of sagas from Erik the Viking by Terry Jones and had also spent several lessons playing the well known simulation Viking Quest on the BBC History website. The children took their experiences  from the books, watching documentaries clips on Youtube, internet research and playing the simulation activityinto a range of drama activities. The teachers collected the vocabulary created in the drama lessons to use back in the classrooms along with photographs for later in the sequence.
The children moved onto planning their stories and creating storyboards to show their plans. Once created the storyboards were scanned and placed onto the server. The children then chose their media of presentation (handwriting on multimodal poster, word processing, podcast or photostory) and moved into their groups.

It was interesting that one group of children chose to use the screen capture tool on the smart software on their laptops to divide their storyboards into six separate images and exported them as jpegs. They then inserted the images into Photostory and recorded their stories and published them on the school website.
This is emphatically not meant to portray Photostory but to continue my ponderings on the use of ICT to support literacy teaching. I know that there are other more recently released applications which can support the use of images in literacy but I strongly believe that this application has much unexplored potential in which could be tapped in many primary classrooms.

Potential uses:
Teacher created -
Images and music relevant to a topic for children to watch as introduction – the class could even record what their KWL thoughts onto the presentation.
Introducing new composers

Pupil created:
Creating simple movies
Digital poetry work with images and music chosen to accompany the words
Biography work could be developed in Photostory before moving to the written form
Recount of key events in History
Sequencing images to show the timeline within a narrative, recount or historical era / event.

Please leave any of your ideas in the comments section.

Photostory blood diamonds
This is a story about the conflict diamonds, the violence of the rebels, the suffering of the people.
However most of all it’s about, the story where the diamond is from.the story what happens behind the scenes,
so you’ll think twice, before buying a diamond jewelry.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-mnQgdnVEY

October 5th, 2009

PHOTOSTORY

After discussing with the French teacher, we both agreed that it would be an excellent idea to keep the PhotoStory plan, so this will introduce the students to this type of presentation. We have asked the students and they are not quite experienced in creating digital documents like this, so we thought we could go step by step.

So, for this first experience with them, we will have them find the reasons to learn French online, then they will create their PhotoStory by following the rubric. I am still not sure if I will have the time to do it for this lesson, but I would like to have an online survey for them to fill out before and after their project. The questions will all be related to the reasons they should learn French, and I am hoping that their answer will be different after they fill out the survey after they have presented their work. This would be a good indicator that the lesson meet its goal, which is to encourage students to develop a desire to learn French.

I had planned in creating the survey with MonkeySurvey, but as I was revewing the lesson plans of other students in our Capstone 1 class, I discovered that it can also be done with Google Docs (the reference that I had was http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dEFSeXZPLUJZd2Y2Ym92YXVxc2dTbHc6MA). I am going to see what can be done with that and if it would be easier and better for both, the students and I.

COMMENTS / SUGGESTIONS – Rubric and Lesson Plan

I am sad to see that I only had one comment/suggestion for my lesson and nothing for my rubric. Since English in not my native language, I was really hoping to have others telling me if I needed to change some of the words and/or grammar, but as of now, I only have one who commented.

Uns alegam que não sabem nada sobre vídeos, alguns que teem preguiça imensa e outros dizem que o trabalho que dá fazer um slideshow com fotos em transição e música de fundo é demais e que vale a pena investir uma certa quantia para que um profissional da área faça um vídeo bacana contendo suas fotos e músicas preferidas para passar numa festa infantil ou mostrar para seus amigos.

Citando o Casseta e Planeta, “Seus problemas acabaram”.

Mas não se trata de uma ferramenta das Organizações Tabajara, pelo contrário.

Muitos não sabem, mas a Microsoft disponibiliza, gratuitamente em seu site, o software Photo Story 3.
Com uma facilidade sem igual, onde com alguns cliques e navegando por algumas telas, é possível escolher as imagens, inserir textos, configurar a transição de imagem para imagem, o movimento de cada imagem específica, as músicas que irão ser tocadas durante o clipe produzido e finalmente o formato e tamanho do vídeo a ser gerado.

Se ainda acha que estou brincando sobre a simplicidade de se gerar um slideshow de fotos, então confira este pequeno e poderoso aplicativo que irá revolucionar o seu modo de exibir suas imagens para seus amigos.

Link para download.

September 30, 2009

LESSON PLAN – CHANGE

Some changes will have to been done in my lesson plan. Instead of having students create their presentation with PhotoStory on “Why are You Learning French,” the French teacher and I have decided to have them create it with MovieMaker.

PhotoStory is very nice and easy to use, but we wanted to have them create their document with more tools. It does not allow to have 2 audio at the same time. For instance, students are going to record themselves at different times during the school year, saved as mp3. 

Contrarily to PhotStory, they will be able, with MovieMaker, to add their own MP3 recording and also have a background music, which will end up being nicer. They will  download the music from http://www.freeplay.com/, which is a wonderful site where they can download music of various lenght, very appropriate for school presentations.

RUBRIC

The rubric will be used to grade students on:

• are students pronuncing the French words correctly? (grade will based on “did we understand the first time” or “I understood after the 2nd time,” etc)
• are the words correctly spelled (at this time it will be on vacabulary only, since they did not learn the verbs yet)
• did they include an image on each page?
• did they write and introduce themselves clearly on the title page, and was the title written in both languages?
• did have 3 pages to show the reasons they should learn French, with one reason per page?

Of course, the rubric may need to be adjusted as I am creating it.