WebQuests

We have begun working on WebQuests recently, and I’m happy to be revisiting this important topic.  This is not a revisitation for the class, but for me personally.  I was first introduced to WebQuests when I began studying for my Teacher-Librarian certification in 2004.  I was intrigued with the idea at the time, but since then I have done much more extensive study on constructivist learning theory, inquiry-based learning, and creating understanding by design.  I find that WebQuests are holding a much greater appeal to me, now that I have some of that underlying theory to support the process.

In fact, exploring this topic is inspiring me to approach a few of my colleagues and begin long-term planning for activities next year.  It is, of course, a bit late in the year to be beginning a WebQuest with students, but I’m eager to put some of these ideas into practice.  Particularly, I enjoyed browsing through the WebQuest Design Patterns, and seeing all of the different types of problems that could be addressed using the WebQuest model.  I’m sure that is just a beginning, but it does give a wonderful place to start thinking about and designing WebQuests of our own.  I had not encountered this page in the past, and will be sure to add it to my social bookmarks.

As a teacher-librarian, helping to prepare WebQuests seems like such a natural part of my job.  Helping students and teachers track down resources, whether on or off line, is what I love about the job.  Helping to create assignments where students use information in authentic, creative situations is what drew me to the teacher-librarian profession.  My frustration is that I rarely have the opportunity to engage in the task, as I must be invited in to a teacher’s classroom (although to be honest, I invite myself fairly frequently).  Still, as teacher’s become more interested in pursuing inquiry-based learning and delving into the new curriculum models in Saskatchewan, I think we will see WebQuests becoming more common in the near future.  Perhaps then I will become a more natural part of the planning process.

 

Jing

I have to admit, when I first tried Jing I didn’t think it was such a big deal.  I could see that it would have some uses, but it wasn’t apparent to me how quickly I would be discovering what those uses are.

Within a week of learning Jing, I have already made us of it three times for job related issues.  I’ve used it to demonstrate features of Google Docs to staff members.  I’ve used it to teach staff members from other schools how to use the online registration process for our inter-school track and field meet.  And I used it to create a video of an online art lesson for the art class that was being covered while I assisted with the track meet.

I’m a bit amazed at how often I’ve been saying, “Wow, this will be so much easier if I can show them while I explain.  I’ll just make a quick Jing movie.”  So very useful!  Thank you for introducing us to this practical, versatile, tool.

 

Storybird

A big thank you to byrnesa for drawing my attention to this fantastic collaborative story telling site.  A simple drag and drop interface for artwork, a click and type interface for writing, and some very eye-catching themes and artwork make this a site worth checking out for teachers.

Although students could write stories on their own, one of the most interesting features of this site is the collaborative aspect of the writing.  Collaborators take turns adding to the story, a process that reminded me of the campfire game we used to play as kids.  Everyone sat in a circle around the fire, the first person started the story,  the next person added to it, then then next, and so on.

Check it out for yourself – Storybird

Prezi

Prezi is an application that I have worked with before, and that I find extremely useful.  I first encountered Prezi when a colleague in one of my classes used it for a class presentation.  I instantly loved it.  Once I got the hang of the controls, it became my presentation tool of choice.

What I think is great about Prezi is the ability to lay out all of my ideas on a big whiteboard.  I’m the type of person who likes to see everything all at once.  Then I can start to look for the patterns in the information, and think about the most interesting way to present the ideas.  I guess I’m not a particularly linear thinker, so I appreciated how easily Prezi allowed me to flow between ideas, or revisit ideas that had already been discussed.  The zooming in feature always makes me feel as though I am getting deeper into a topic, and I like that idea.

Prezi, to me, has an almost narrative quality.  It is like I’m telling a story with the information.  I suppose one could have that feeling with Powerpoint as well, but I never did.  With Prezi, I’m always looking at the big picture, and how the details relate to that larger idea.

I also like the simplicity of the Prezi controls.  They might be little tricky at first, but once you get the hang of them it is actually easier than creating complex Powerpoint slides.  This simplicity makes it easy for students to use with a bit of practice.

Xtranormal

This week we worked on the video-making application Xtranormal.  While I enjoyed working with this application myself, I find myself, yet again, wondering about the practical use of these types of tools given the current level of computer access in my teaching situation.  Students are fortunate to get onto a laptop computer one hour a week in my current teaching assignment.  While this makes me more fortunate than many schools, I still find it insufficient for doing in-class work with these types of publishing tools.  Teachers that I work with get frustrated when they can’t book the computers often enough to promptly complete assignments.  While it can be made a presentation option for students to pursue outside of class, these only adds distance to the digital divide: some students have easy access to these tools, while others have no access whatsoever.

However, these problems are not likely to go away any time soon, so perhaps it is better to focus on the benefits of this tool.  Xtranormal is simple to use, which is a real bonus.  The basic drag and drop interface makes it accessible even to upper elementary students.  Most of my students do not have the “virtually universal” skill of typing (unless of course we are referring to hunting and pecking), so writing and typing in a script is a time consuming job for even my grade 8 students.  However, given that one was willing to devote the time to allowing students to type in the scripts, the Xtranormal is a tool I’m sure my students would enjoy.

I noticed, as I worked through my own movie making this week, that proper grammar and punctuation made a big difference in how the actor voice interpreted the dialogue.  The use of commas, quotation marks, periods, capital letters, and other features of grammar changed the emphasis that the robotic voice placed on the words.  There were limits to how much I could affect the voice, but overall I was pleased by how responsive the actor was to the nuances of my type-written script.

The auto-camera feature is handy, especially for working with younger students, as it takes away one of the complications of film making.  However, with older students I think I would encourage them to manually change the camera angles, as this prompts discussion as to how and why you would choose to change camera positions.  What is the benefit?  Why would film makers choose to do this?  Of course, I teach the fine arts, so I tend to be overly concerned with those types of decisions.  Depending on the nature of the assignment, focusing on the aesthetics of film making my not be necessary.  In fact, it could become overly distracting!

I noticed in Xtranormal videos that I watched that there is a way of changing sets and actors within a movie, although I have not yet figured out how to do this myself.  Perhaps a greater expenditure of points would solve this problem.  I also found the selection of motions and sounds to be more humourous than practical, although using a limited range of sound effects and motion does encourage one to be creative in the application.  However, combined with an inability of the actors to walk, it is difficult to get too dynamic.  Basically you are looking at two talking heads that can be viewed from different angles.  Not interesting to watch for long, and the lack of emotion in the voice makes it not terribly interesting to hear.  I was left asking myself, “Why not encourage the students to role play?”

There are a few reasons why you might pursue Xtranormal over using student actors in videos or live role play.  First, the complications of live filming are significantly greater than the complications of Xtranormal filming.  Second, Xtranormal, even if you buy points, is a lot cheaper than getting film editing software and video recording hardware.  Third, posting an Xtranormal video gives students the possibility of a much wider audience, far beyond the classroom.  Fourth,  Xtranormal videos do not require media release forms for the actors.  Finally, many students experience stage fright or other performance anxiety, and using Xtranormal eliminates much of this worry.  While I personally think students should be taught to overcome these anxieties (again, see fine arts training), I appreciate the dilemma.

I like Xtranormal overall, and will undoubtedly use it myself to spice up presentations and lessons.  I’m not sure that it is something I would try with a whole class of elementary of middle years students quite yet.  However, with a bit more exposure to the medium, and the possibility of more computer access for students, I would probably try this with a whole class in the future.

Check out my Xtranormal page for a link to my group project.

Thoughts on Qwiki

We had a chance to explore a search engine called Qwiki this week.  The creators say that it offers an “information experience”, and it is certainly an interesting concept.  I appreciate the goal here – to create a multimedia informational experience.  A search query brings up video, textual, and pictorial information in one quick, easy article.  It evens provides a text-to-voice feature to read the informational summary to the consumer.

In our discussion forum, I commented on that, as a librarian, Qwiki made me apprehensive.  This application is still in its infancy, so concerns about mispronunciation of words, disliking the audio voice, or the layout are minor issues to me – all of these issues may be addressed in future testing or releases of the product.  I have far greater concerns over how to cite this information, and how to verify the accuracy of the information.  While I did not notice any textual inaccuracies in my brief testing of this medium, I did notice several times where the pictorial sample did not accurately portray the text being presented.  I am old enough and experienced enough to catch these inaccuracies and make the mental correction myself.  However, much of my ability to do this was based on the fact that I was already familiar with the subject matter I was searching.  To an inexperienced searcher, these inaccuracies may not be obvious and could be a cause of confusion.  An example was my search for the Regina Symphony Orchestra – this brought up a nice textual article about the symphony, but the only picture was a graph that depicted the age as being one year old, with the birth date being 1927.  However, 1927 is not the date of the founding of the symphony, and the Regina Symphony has been around for far longer than one year.

However, given enough time, I would expect Qwiki to address some of these issues concerning accuracy.  What concerns me even more than this is the underlying attitude in an application like Qwiki – you don’t need to go anywhere else to find your information.  There is something dangerous to me in the idea of making information too simple to access.  I like the idea of Qwiki, so long as it is one of many means of obtaining information.  But I fear the seductiveness of a concept like this, particularly with youth.  I can hear comments like, “Why would I go anywhere else?  Qwiki shows me everything that I needed to know.”

There is a need, and indeed I would go so far as to say responsibility, for consumers to be discerning about where information is retrieved, and how it is collected.  People had this fear about Wikipedia, but Wikipedia was always transparent in showing how the articles were written, and who collaborated in the creation of the article.  With Qwiki, there is no such transparency, and that is what worries me.  Without knowing more about how the information is collected for a Qwiki, and who contributes to the information presented, I would be very hesitant to put any long term faith in this product.  Information is never something I should have to take on blind faith.

Blabberize

Blabberize is a fun application that could be used as a digital storytelling tool, or an alternative method of delivering a short lesson to students.  It provides any image with an animated mouth that moves in time to a recorded message.  Crude graphics, but still fun.  Here is an example of a Blabberize that I made from one of my drawings.

http://blabberize.com/view/id/485077

I think I would have to work on it a bit more to get the mouth to move the direction that I want, but you get the idea.  The program is easy to use, provided you have a microphone on your computer.  I’ll definitely be trying this with my elementary students.