Google Forms, Calc, Bar Charts and Excel: Data Handling Gets Creative

In the process of doing housekeeping on the PC and at my blog, I have come across a number of partially completed posts waiting for an audience.  So to work, this post outlines a series of activities I used with students in Phase 2 while introducing Spreadsheets for data handling last April. 

Communal Data Collection Using Google Docs

The unit began in class using our Asus netbooks and a Google form I had prepared entitled " A Few of Our Favourite Things."  The form was set up as an online questionaire, with free entry text boxes.  The students accessed the web and followed a prepared link from the VLE to the data entry form.  In pairs the students were encouraged to talk about and then respond individually to a collection of questions around the subject of our favourite things, such as what is your favourite colour/song/football team/subject at school?  Completing the form and pressing submit, automatically updated a Google spreadsheet, that was displayed on screen.  The live data collection was a real draw, as they watched each other's data arrive and the spreadsheet update in real time. Pace in this part of the session was generated by the sense of urgency to submit their information and see it appear before others.  We knew how many students were in class, and so the size of the sample we expected to see.  We could check quickly that everyone had submitted their data by counting the number of rows completed, before closing the "poll" and exporting the data sheets for use table top based activities. When all the data was in the spreadsheet was exported and saved as a pdf file, this was then printed and distributed to groups of students to use as the basis for tallying and data entry.

As a primary teacher, I am familiar with the amount of time that can be taken up with student data collection, as individual students navigate the room, collecting responses by tally.  I like the idea that using this method a range of data was collected relatively quickly, and as a communal act was then available to all following submission.  One of our key questions before engaging with our data sets, must be has everyone responded.  Placing the google spreadsheet centrally to the IWB, the students could see the sheet being updated as data came in,  since the form had been set up so all fields were compulsory, no one could submit until they had completed each field, and then simply counting or tallying the number of respondants visible we could identify who we were waiting for.  Having a range of data available allowed us to use real information in our initial skills teaching activities, and then for students themselves to select from data sets they were interested in to develop their own individual data sets for further exploration.

Rerepresenting our Samples as Frequency Tables

With  the downloaded "spreadsheets" distributed to pairs of students, we worked together on our Netbooks as I modelled, using a projected image of the screen how to create a frequence table using Open Office's Calc spreadsheet. We did this using the same data set.... Our Favourite colours.  The students were shown how to enter text labels in one column, elimnating duplicates as they went, before in the parallel column counting/tallying and recording the frequency of voters for each colour.  These tables were then given a group constructed title, and the cells into which data had been entered were adjsuted for fit, and then formatted with borders. Each student pair then saved their file.

Next the students were asked to choose two data sets from those on the spreadsheet printout and to create frequency tables for these independently, saving their work periodically so the data would not be lost. 

From Frequency Tables to Pictorial Representation

With our data enterd to the Spreadsheet and the tables formatted, we moved on together using the data set we had set up together as our starting point.  Using the chart wizard students were guided through the creation of a bar chart.  As we worked students discussed and were encouraged to add appropriate chart titles, and also axis labels.  We identified which axis was the x and which the y, we discussed what was special about the data represented on these, and appropriate titles and labels for them.  The students were also, shown how to change formatting and how to recolour the columns and bars in the chart.

Students were then left to practice this process creating a set of bar charts for each of the three other data sets they had created.

• Applying really clear and thorough titles for their charts that would help their readers.
• Producing Axis Labels that would inform their readers of exactly what was shown there
• Recolouring the data plots and bars, choosing appropriate colour fills and effects to match the data.

The charts we had created were used to raise questions and respond to them, extending these to look at more than and less than, by comparing frequencies represented using difference models of subtraction to seek out answers.  Drawing on the dynamic functions of the spreadsheet, we also asked, what would happen if... we used the spreadsheet to order data sets, highest to lowest and vice versa, predicting and then comparing our thoughts to the visual representations created as a result on screen.

This process took approximately 3 sessions of an hour each.   Once completed files and charts were upoaded to the VLE, from where they could be accessed for printing out and display.

Moving On: Presenting Pictograms in a Garden

In class the students had been introduced to Calc and Google Spreadsheets, and they had experienced using these tools as part of a collaborative task, to input and collect data remotely and to tally, enter, present and rerepresent data locally. In the final stage of this project however I wanted the students to get creative, considering other elements in chart creation with a spreadsheet environment, that might make our maths more appealing interesting and accessible to a reader.  To do this I used another prepared data set, but this time based on a set of survey data I had available to me around songbird populations in the UK.  For this series of activities the students were given access to Excel, rather than calc which they had been using on the netbook.  We began the session by discussing Excel and comparing it to the other tools they had used. What did they notice about the environment?  What was the same about it and what was different?  For all intents and purposes the tools were largely the same, they were visually a grid, made up of cells arranged in rows and columns.  We formatted the cells, rows and columns in a very similar way.  With these identified, the students were then provided with data sets to enter, and format as before.  We identified the chart wizard tool, and then set to work creating charts based on the data, adding appropriate axis labels and a clear title, with the students recolouring and reformatting the chart.

The students were then asked about the data itself.  How many of these birds had they ever seen?  Where would they expect to see them?  Did the students think it would be possible to create a bar chart that would really draw in their audience, or even wow passers by as they were working?  Could we create a chart that included images of the birds, and set the birds in their natural habitats.  Viewing charts as part of the Multimodal world this would add an additional layer of meaning making to the outcomes.

The students were now engaged in a collect and store task, using an image search to locate individual images of each of the birds in question and one final image of a garden.... A bar chart in a garden...

The students were then encouraged to further explore the formatting tools for their charts, and to apply the skills tha already had from work with Calc.  We made a second version and this time instead of colour formatting bars, used the fill effects button and picture tab to insert individual bird images to our chart columns.  These were then scaled by 1, to create a pictogram type effect. Highlighting the chart area the garden image they had found was then applied as a background to the chart plot area itself.  Very pretty.  However with the images inserted the axis labels and values as well as the chart title were less readable, requiring some further formatting effects to be applied, changing font colours and backrounds became a necessity to make them readable.

The outcomes are very attractive, as well as introducing for me a key aspect to the purpose of data handling the idea that we produce charts and graphs to be read and interpretted.  Like other visual text sources, they are created to help an audience access and interpret them, the more relavant our content to context the more likely we are to portray the meaning we set out to share.  Persuading students to use formatting devices for other reasons than because we can, is a key aspect to helping them understand the roll of such devices, and ICTs offer incredibly powerful and creative ways to do this. In this unit I wanted students to engage with Spreadsheets as a mathematical tool, not only for its pace and dynamic nature in presenting and representing information, but also as a way of managing the process and engaging with charts and graphs as a form of visual literacy.

Comic Strip Creator Applet

I have been preparing steadily for a workshop on using Video and Comic Strips as storytelling tools and devices.  Although I had intended to focus on using a range of familiar tools such as Publisher and Powerpoint as the vehicles for this I recently encountered a really useful little tool  created by comicstripcreator.org. 

Comic Strip Creator is simple to use and does exactly what it says on the tin, but as with so many tools of its type, its apparent simplicity hides beneath some quite powerful possibilities for cross curricular use.  To download the application you first of all must register, but then you are a click or two away from a handy little piece of freeware.

Once downloaded and installed clicking the shortcut leads to your first choice whether to create a 1 or 2 row comic strip.  The interface has a tabbed panel to the left, from where

• You can choose to add or remove frames
•  Import and insert images as backgrounds
• Import clipart (some can be downloaded from the site, while others may need to be prepared or sought from other sources)
• Add balloons (speech and thought bubbles are available but not captions, though this could be solve in later uses of the images created)

Unfortunately the environment does not support saving of draft comic strips but only allows export of completed strips in jpg format.  However this can also be a strength, with students and teachers being able to engage with drafting tasks in desktop activities before using the tool to create digital outcomes for use in other applications for printing or web based environments such as blogs and wikis.  The image outputs could also be cropped or edited for use in video presentations through PhotoStory or MovieMaker, perhaps even allowing additional text support in background images for animated storylines using products such as Pivot. 

It could also support assessment for learning activities, planning tasks in support of talking for writing and enable differentiation through the use of images captured during sessions, or prepared in advance to support digital literacy outcomes.  These images could be shared through network and online spaces for inclusion in comic strips to support and enhance this work.

I'm sure that a few minutes play with the tool will open up a host of other posibilities to you.  I hope to come back to again sometime in the near future, with more time to assimilate it for myself, but also I hope with some insight from the colleagues I share it with.  Any suggestions or ideas that spring to mind, please feel free to share through commenting here.

Email Consequences: Virtual Snowballing collecting ideas and framing ideas for writing.

Over the last few weeks I have been working with our older Phase two students, reintroducing our Netbooks, how to access the Network and VLE from the classroom, laying foundations for next term when I am intending to have a big push on their use in classrooms through a data handling project.

The students as I mentioned in a previous post have been blogging and leaving comments on posts while writing journal and diary type entries about recent events in school including a school journey.  They have also been using file storage spaces and learning how to upload images and files in order to add them to online work, or access them in ongoing projects both in and away from school.

This week a change of tack and a revisit to using our email accounts.  I wanted to practice primarily entry of email addresses, and use of the reply to and forward processes choosing to do this in the context of writing a collaborative story plot and as the basis for this, a variation on the game consequences to get us going.  The students worked in pairs, each pair linked with another somewhere else in the classroom.  The students knew who they were working with, but were separated physically by distance.  It took a little while to get the task off the ground so to speak, something new and slightly unfamiliar often leaves them a little wobbly, but once in the swing of things the lesson soon took off.

So what did we do?  How did this snowballing thing work?

I began simply with an opening idea..
" two characters meet somewhere, who were they and where did they meet?" The students had a time limit of 5 minutes discussion and writing time before the "opener" was forwarded to the partner pair.

"Something happened?  What took place?" With a click of the reply button, the students had 2 minutes to share the opener and a further 5 minutes discussion and writing time before sending to their partner.

"suddenly...." as above.

" how did the characters react?" repeat.

"what happened as a result?" and so on

By the end of the activity the students had in their inboxes the skeletons of two bizarre tales for each pair.
 
Comments from the session review included

• " I really enjoyed it because we worked together and we could use each others ideas."
• " I was worried I would get it wrong but some of the things people wrote were really funny and it was fun."
• "I liked having different steps to follow"
• "I thought we were going to send our work to everyone at the start, it would have taken ages, but working in pairs was really good because I got ideas from other people to help me."

At first some of the group were a little resistant to the pace of the activity, the time limited nature of each step in the process or game leading to comments about not being finished.  So it was interesting to hear how during their reviews the adult lead, stop/send/start process "the different steps to follow," featured so highly in the things the students liked about the session, providing security and scaffolding but also pace and movement to the activity. Within the group there are one or two boys I know who often say they don't know what to write.  So again it was interesting to hear one or two of these ask if we were going to do this again next week.

Reflecting on the task as a collect and store process. I am wondering how a slight change could help students get into a "writing frame" of mind.  Making a start is often a problem for some students, we immerse them in the genre, we box up the structure of the text together, provide writing frames, but still that barrier can remain. Even with a structure how do I get started. The huge white mass, however we partition or divide it up can still be a put off.

The class teacher came up with the idea that having seen the children work she might like to use the process to help the class get started with their writing of myths and legends next term.  Perhaps presenting the task as a writing game, following or to support the box up or planning process. Key elements of the text type could be used to organise the teacher lead "consequences idea."  Working in pairs of pairs the students could be involved in discussion and use the email game to engage the students in short burst writes leading to a skeletal story structure as an outcome, getting down the key ideas.  The students could then choose from the plots that they have to be copied and pasted to a wordprocessor, where they would be encouraged to develop and reshape the ideas they had collected together to shape their outcomes.  Nice idea and look forward to writing later about how this pans out.

Header Images, Wordle, Wikipaedia and Image Search: 2

Over the weekend I waxed a little around a project I had begun with my ICT club.  We used Wordle, Wikipaedia and Google image search as tools in the collect and store phase of a web page header or banner project.  This week the students engaged with the prepare and share phase, completing some of the banners they are hoping to see exhibited on the school website and class blogs, as devices that will add to the house style while individualizing each class page in school.

I decided to use MS paint in the end since this is a tool the students were already familiar with, and thought I'd share one or two of the outcomes here.  The students are really pleased with them, and actually for a first attempt by them at something like this I think they are very cool.  Looking at the objects it is interesting how even beginning with the same tools, playfulness and freedom to select final outcomes for display has lead to a deal of creative variation.  I hope you enjoy.

Woodpecker Class Y 4 Student

Dove Class Y4 Student

Hawks Y5 Student

Kestrels Y4 Student

"Its Magic!" IWB Rub to Reveal in a Phonics Session

Friday's are great with my timetable including a day with one of our younger Phase 2 classes.  The students all aged between 6 and 8 are Year 2 and 3 and a lively group.  Their day with me includes a focussed reading session, which for the last couple of weeks has involved using activities to investigate spelling and reading texts and words including the phonemes they have been working on during the week.  To help with this I have begun collecting images from the web, that we can use as a starting point for the sessions.

Some of the phoneme groups I still think are a little obscure, and image collections not easy to compile. This week for example we have been looking at the various graphemes that can be used to represent /er/.  The collection included things like ferns, birds, a teacher, a winner who came first in a race, a collection of words, a Whirlwind and  screen capture of a wordsearch.

The images were used as an introduction to the session, and as a way of re-engaging the students in listening for the sounds they had been learning about, or thinking about what each image might represent within the rhyming groups they were working on.  In addition however the images were also selected to support engagement with the main task, which was to work in pairs on a "phoneme Spotter" activity before sorting and grouping the words according to the graphemes they contained.  I was concerned that some of the words might be unfamiliar to some students, and hence the choice of a fern, though the choice of some images as visual metaphors, such as a flame for burn was also interesting allowing discussion of what fire or flame might have to do with the /er/ sound we were working on.

Previously I have printed or copied the phoneme spotters we are going to use to a smart board notebook, to act as a shared read before asking students to find and code words.  For some reason I decided last week to present the spotter covered by a layer of digital ink, and to make it into a "rub amd reveal" activity.  The students loved it, and were completely captured as the IWB eraser was dragged across the text slowly revealing the text a word or sentence/phrase at a time.  "It's magic!"  seemed to be the common consensus, and the looks on the student's faces who had obviously not seen this before was great.  This week when I was passing the class I was asked if I would be making the computer write stories again.  Moments like this are the kind of thing we live for and I was happy to oblige.

What was really interesting today was  though that element of "magic" remained, the students were now anticipating the text appearing and began to read along with the rubber as the text was revealed.  This offered some interesting opportunities to begin playing with the text,

• skipping on and revealing words later in the text while leaving others preceding it hidden.  Discussing what might still be hidden under the ink before revealing this and testing our predictions.
• Stopping to ask what might come next, before reading and checking our predictions
• revealing a few letters or a few words from the next sentence and asking what might appear next.
• Revealing the initial phonemes and final phonemes and asking which grapheme or sound picture will be under the ink to spell the word we were reading.

Putting the "magic" aside for the moment, engagement with the text in this way prior to the spotter activity, improved student familiarity with it, while the use of the images to begin meant some of the stranger vocabulary had been introduced.  In pairs I asked them to use their own versions of the text to identify the words that contained the /er/ graphemes or sound pictures, and then pulling the group together we began identifying how the /er/ sound could be written and where each grapheme usually appeared in words.


After this, the students were asked to test our ideas and generalisations by soritng the words they had found in a table.  The group was pulled together again for a final review with a "drag and drop" version of the table top task used to sort the words as a class and check against the work we had done.  While discussing how well our generalisations worked.  E.g did "ir" always go in the middle of words, and "er" always come at the end.  From the examples we had the rules seemed to work pretty well, even though I did introduce at least one example from our photos that didn't match, eg shirt, first, girl and bird followed our rule, but the fir tree didn't, however as a rule of thumb it worked pretty well.

I'm sure for many colleagues the structure of this session is more than familiar, however for me what was interesting was

• How use of "Phonic Photos" or text related images helped re-engage the students with phoneme and grapheme groups introduced and even though metaphorical in nature how some of these prompted discussion and inferential work, while also helping introduce visually, unfamiliar vocabulary
  
• How introducing the spotter as a whole class shared text, and in a slightly different way, using digital ink  and rub to reveal techniques opened possibilities to engage students with higher order reading skills such as prediction and deduction based around an accesible and manageable text chunk
• How student response and motvation seemed to increase through the "magic" created by a relatively simple extension of a previous task by the addition of digital ink and use of the rub and reveal technique.

Revisiting Viewpoints: Working in the Style of Monet

In a previous post, Viewpoints: Working in the style of Monet I presented a learning story, showing how I and a group of Y4 students had used

• images as discussion points around the work and style of the artist
• drawn on these over a number of weeks to sequentially develop graphics using ICTs based on this work

The unit, involved the use of a common graphics package (MS Paint) to construct and manipulate student self created images while also consolidating functional ICT skills.  These include

• limited tool choices to create image elements in the given style. eg spray can and colour pallette
• Select and copy tools
• Introducing and consolidating the "cascade save" process, using save as and "sensible file" names to build a portfolio of progression through each activity, and return points to which we can go if errors are made, and navigation of network drive spaces.
• Understanding how we can use a graphics package to compose images by drawing together elements we create seperately
  
• Using a collection of predeveloped (drafted image) elements and toggling between software instances, through the use of select copy and paste tools to arrange image compositions.
• Explore cause and effect using rotation and flip tools (in Paint) or by extension to use more complex graphic tools, to investigate and explore filters and effects, before choosing images for our final outcome.

Previous units have resulted in students creating "IKEA" style Prints.  Using MS Publisher to import their final image before adding text and printing out their work on the colour laser.  This time around though I am intending to develop an entirely digital outcome by exploring Monet scenes that reflect seasonal change.  Working with KS2 Students the outcome and brief is to use graphics tools and the collect, store, share and prepare process to produce a short animated sequence based on a single viewpoint or landscape that shows how a scene might appear at different times of the year.

How will this be achieved?

Using Microsoft Paint the students will create a landscape, showing skyline, mid and forground and develop a simple tree skeleton motif using the spray can tool to include trunk and branches.  The tree skeleton will be saved as treespring, treesummer and so on.

Drawing on discussions about how trees appear in images representing the seasons, colour choices made by the artist for mood and effect, the students will  develop their own representations of the tree motif during each season considering  colour choices and exploring the effects they can create by layering spray effects. We will maintain a copy of our original tree skeleton motif as a return point, and for later use in the project.

Using the original tree skeleton, students will be encouraged to create a single landscape starting point, by copying and pasting instances of it to the landscape they have created, composing their own particular viewpoint before saving four copies of this, named landscapespring, landscapesummer and so on. 

To each of these landscapes the students will apply the effects  they developed during their exploration of their tree images to show how they think they might appear during each of the seasons.  They might also explore further detailing, eg sky colour effects perhaps through the use of additional painting tools and the undo tool,  while using save as to keep copies.

Digital Outcome

Using Photostory and the images the students have developed I would like them to create a simple morphing sequence of change for their landscape.  They will be encouraged to select 4 of their images 1 representing each season and to import these to Photostory.  These will then be chronologically ordered on the timeline, before applying transition effects and times.  They will be encouraged also to choose one additional image from those created and to add text to this forming a title overlay.  To complete the project they will add a music track before exporting their completed video for addition to either their class or personal blog space within the VLE for review by colleagues and other students.

If readers have any thoughts about how this project outcome might be further developed I would love to hear from you.  In my new role this year I am also working with a number of Key Stage 3 classes and would be interested to hear from colleagues any ideas they may have about how this type of work might be adapted, extended or used as an element within projects for students in this phase of learning.    

VLE Reflections 1: A few embedables to get started

It is a wet and miserable day outside today and having spent yesterday indulging in a spot of amateur joinery in the real world, I thought I'd put aside the hammer and saw before I do any real damage and spend some time banging on the keyboard instead. Its been a fair old while since I posted anything, though I have been dabbling in the background, preparing bits and bobs. Listening in on twitter conversations it looks like I have not been alone doing similar things to many of my colleagues, those mundane behind the scenes things, that many don't see when they log on but if weren't done would certainly be noticed. Hopefully some of the things I have been doing will make colleague engagement with the ICT tools available to them more appealing.

One of these tasks has been setting up class templates in our VLE, setting up themes and installing widgets to be edited by colleagues. This begun I hope it will be less daunting to begin using the space in earnest as we move into the new year. A major barrier to date as I see it has been beginning, since the spaces we buy into, whether commercial or open source must first be populated with content, and this in turn must be planned and prepared before publication. For some of us I guess this can be seen as "doing everything twice," this bolt on image of the VLE is far from my own view and vision. If we are to embed these tool sets successfully, an alternative perspective that weaves the various components offered by a VLE or Learning Platform as an integral part of the learning experience must be taken. Rather than a repository for resources we make, if we see and make an expectation that the VLE be an extension or integral part of the classroom, then the tools and resources we make available here should reflect our view of learning and pedagogy by adaptation to meet the needs. social and academic, of the tasks we set.

This doesn't however negate the need to begin somewhere, so in this post I want to share a few online spaces offering embedable tools, one where interactivities are readily available for immediate use, and one recieved today through feed that requires some user input inorder to generate it.

The Ultimate Wordsearch Maker

Thanks to Joe Dale and Jane Croft for pointing me to the Ultimate Wordsearch Maker. This online tool generates "interactive" wordsearches. Below is a quick example, and I apologise in advance for the seeming lack of imagination in its content, however as a demo it was incredibly quick to create and publish here.

Make Your Own Word Search

Creating the wordsearch itself was straightforward,

• visit the site,
• input each word
• press the add button in between each new word.

Slightly more complicated but really satisfying will be when you have embedded a working interactivity to your page.

Once complete, your wordsearch can be added to your space in one of two ways, either

• copy the embed code,
• view your own web page as html
• click where you would like the activity to appear
• paste the code

this is what can be seen above;

or link to the page

• select the link code
• copy it,
• open a hyperlink dialog box
• paste the code
• press ok

this latter process adds a hyperlink, that on clicking directs the user to a host page. This may not be the most effective route, having possible implications for access in school if the site is filtered by the firewall. I think there is also probably more of a wow, if the wordsearch is embedded directly to the page to play there and then, and well worth the achievement factor on your part when you display the page for the first time.

Playing the game is straightforward, once found, click on the first and last letters of the word to highlight it, and if correct the widget crosses it off the list. What I was unsure about was the idea that in this version the word in the grid itself is not highighted, but this does leave the grid uncluttered, and easier to read. As a start the day task, for introducing new or extending vocabulary, engaging students with spellings, a discussion based warm up session, or simply as a motivator for the more reluctant to visit the class home page once a week this is a really nice tool.

Embedding this in our VLE (Netmedia) was a bit more drawn out since it "didn't seem to initially like what I was trying to do," and required the making of an html page first that could be uploaded to a "file viewer" widget. To do this I used the Microsoft Notepad text editor. Creating my wordsearch as above, and copying the embed code, then pressing start/programs/accessories to find and open Notepad (NOT WordPad). From here

• Click in the Notepad window,
• right click and paste
• press file/save as
• give your file a name eg wordsearch1
• delete the extension .txt and type .html
  
• select all files from the save as file types,
  
• press save

This file was then uploaded from the computer to the widget. Online tools and resources all have there own particular "quirks" and ways of doing things, the above worked in the tools I have been using today, eg Blogger and The Netmedia VLE, if the direct copy and paste processes don't work in your platform it may be necessary to play for a while in order to find the tool that works with your environment.

BBC Bitesize Activities

BBC Bitesize interactivities are ready made tasks created to support revision tasks. You may already use the space with students in school, directing them here by URL, but what you may not have noticed is that these activities can be placed directly into your own online learning content. If you are looking for examples of ready made embedable content to share with colleagues and use with students as you set up and establish your VLE, these are a useful starting point. There are a range of tasks to support English, Mathematics and Science, though in choosing which to use you will obviously need review them in relation to your intended learning outcomes. These can be added to a blog or web page using the copy and paste processes outlined above, and looked good embedded in a page widget in our VLE after following the final process outlined above .




Other Online tasks and Interactivities

In addiditon to Bite Size embedables, there are a host of other online tasks, and games on the BBC Schools Website that I have found really useful when setting up home learning activities for students. These sites have formed a focus for class based sessions too, where spaces created in the VLE have been used to direct students to specific content I want them to use and engage with. To enable this I have provided hyperlinks to the page, and simple instructions about how and why I would like the students to engage with them.

Finding resources such as these can be onerous, this is one of the reasons I began using del.icio.us to collect my bookmarks in one place it was also one way I chose to share these with friends and colleagues. I also began to sort and group some of these as a resource bank here. Some of these are getting on a bit now, and the space is looking a little neglected but perhaps you will find a few nuggets here as starting points. In setting up a link list of this sort for the students it is always a good idea to visit the space, first of all to check that the site is still there but also to ensure that it meets the exact needs you are trying to fulfill.

End Thought

I posted about Bitesize interactivities a while back and despite being able to embed them sucessfully into my blogger blog, and getting them to run in our VLE today, I have to admit I still haven't managed to get them to work with our Wordpress blogs. If anyone can offer any help or advice with this I would be really grateful, thanks.

A Simple Animatic: Digital storyboard Using MS Paint and Photostory

Preparing materials to use in class next week, including a storyboard model to help my students frame their thinking as they plan a short animation about materials and change. To begin I created these four simple, sketch like images using Microsoft Paint. Using each through a copy and paste process I then compiled six further sketch like images figuratively representing the melting and freezing process to use in a smart book.


As I was working I wondered about how the images might work as as part of a simple "animatic" story. The result of my wanderings, is this video clip created using photostory and my story board images.

A similar process has been used previously to help students think about the changing seasons, by creating landscapes with PhotoFiltre and MS Paint. Through a "cascade" saving process the students were encouraged to revise and edit a template image they had prepared to show what they thought the same scene might look like at different times of the year. Completed images were then imported to photostory, chronologically sequenced and background music added before export to video for sharing. The process also supported documentary work and recount development with my class earlier in the year as they told the story of Grace Darling. and shared their feelings as we left our old school building behind. MS Photostory is a really nice tool to use with students and these simple techniques great starting points for thinking about animation and digital story telling if keen to have a try but concerned about the process and how to begin.

Playing With iSpring Free

I am looking forward to a bit of time over the next couple of weeks to kick back, unwind, play, write and share some of the things I have been up to recently. I have decided to begin by exploring a tool I was introduced to and shared before Christmas but that in the midst of our move to new premises I have not had time to play with.

The tool is iSpring Free, a downloadable plugin for PowerPoint, that enables the slideshows we create to be exported, shared and displayed as flash video files. I originally came across the tool as a recommended "gadget" by a pilot partner from Netmedia, as a way for colleagues to use an environment they are familiar with to develop multimedia content for the VLE.

With iSpring we initially identified how colleagues could use the tool very simply alongside PowerPoint to create

• photo albums
• simple illustrated texts
• Visual writing prompts and models etc

to support online projects.

The tool could also be used in a similar vain with students to allow multimodal texts they created in Powerpoint, to be published directly to webspaces without their reader needing to download a viewer, or as we have often done in the past, publishing their show as a web page for upload and sharing.

I have used online host spaces to publish and share simple linear shows such as learning stories and those I want to use with colleagues away from site, and either embedding these to my blog or logging on in situ to access them full screen. The functionality of PowerPoint however allows so much more than this in terms of developing content. The inclusion of hyperlinks for example allows navigation to be included, and a multidimensional or layered effect to be added to the shows we produce, allowing us and our readers to explore and move around a show in our own way by travelling directly from one slide in the show to another and back again. This feature is generally lost when we upload files to sites such as these.

iSpring while creating its flash file, maintains the hyperlinks enabling the slideshows to behave as they would in slideshow view in PowerPoint. The slideshows remain navigable. Here are a few examples that I converted today to show what I mean.

This Linear show is a learning story/Documentary developed with students as an integral part of a Creative Partnerships Animation Project a number of years ago. Clicking on each slide or using the control bar allows the reader to move from one slide to another in sequence. The show is rather long, but was presented to the students as behind the scenes look at the project and contextualised as DVD behind the scenes look at the film making process. It was later used as a kiosk show in school and at a a local conference on loop to share the process behind the project developed with students. It may be of interest in its entirity as a learning story in this context as well as a demo of this particular piece of software.


This textured or layered show includes hyperlinks. As you navigate watch out for arrow images embedded on some of the slides. These invite you as a reader to engage and interact with the content, to move to other slides that present development ideas and thinking points based in the page you have just visited and also direct you back to this with another hyperlink. The slides can either be navigated in a linear fashion by clicking the slide, or by clicking hyperlinks the reader can move between slides directly. This show created a number of years ago in PowerPoint was an early attempt on my part to create a layered text, with and for students. This has also been published previously on this blog as a swf file generated using 2create.



This file also a linear presentations, contains three poems developed by groups of students using images from the web to think about similes and set to auto run.



These files developed by students, both use hyperlinks in Powerpoint to navigate the show in different ways. The first was created as an esafety unit outcome with Y6 students scaffolded by by this great online resource from teaching ideas. The second example was created by pairs of Y 5 students as part of a challenge to create a CD ROM style book for younger students based on the Non Dialogue based Narrative Bert.





It has been great this morning while looking for files to play with to revisit earlier works, and through experimenting with iSpring to give a new lease of life to some of them, and to display them as I would have originally liked to share them. It has also been useful to begin extending thoughts about how tools such as this can open new paths for old tools, thoughts and ideas.

UK based colleague at porchester has been using iSpring as a tool to help his students publish developed content to their school's blog based web site, and says

Particular favourites of mine from the work presented here are poems such as this based around snowfalling. The power of this for me lies in the multimodal nature of the presentation. Moving beyond text and images, the animation effects applied to the text, with the addition of sound add much to the overall atmosphere and depth of the piece. Very cool.

This is a tool I think I will have to come back to some more this week.

Reflections: Collect, Store, Prepare and Share

During the half term holiday I was asked by a colleague to consider expanding on and to present some of the ideas surrounding a principle that underpins much of my work using ICT for communication with students, and so how I hope to develop use of mobile and web 2.0 tools within and beyond the classroom in school.

This post sets out to introduce the principle of "collect, store, prepare and share," a concept I encountered at HHL07 but adding a personal twist, using a number of tools and examples to model and introduce the essence of the process as it relates to my work in school. In the first example the context is personal use, and the tools though not readilly accessible for use in school, nonetheless I hope begin to illuminate the possibilities and the processes behind the principle. The second example is a more practical and down to earth example of how the principle underpins everday practice and the preparation of material to use with students, before finally beginning to develop how the principle fits in with the mobile and home school elearning project we are beginning to develop.

Using Twitter and Twitpics: Using Public Tools Personally to Collect, Store, Prepare and Share

The first part of my story uses my mobile phone and the social networking tools Twitter and Twitpic, and begins early on the first Monday of half term, as the sun began hauling itself lazily over North Somerset's lower Mendips in to another day. On this glorious morning I found myself here, with friends on our favourite 18 holes.


It was a beautiful morning as you can see from the photograph. I really wanted to share it with my friends, not later but now. Not only the beauty of the place but the effect of the light on the alien object to the centre left, that gave the eerie feel to the space. I could have texted my friends, attaching the image, but wouldn't it be great if I could put the image in one place to share it with them simultaneously, and where I could go back to later, to download it or use as a reference point in other things we were doing like this?

Captured on my Digital Camera I could share the image with friends when I got home, uploading it to a "share" space such as Flickr or Picassa. Since I had my Mobile phone with me, less bulky and cumbersome than my camera, and that I tend to carry for "just in case moments" I had the additional advantage of a direct network connection, and the possibility of using a space to store and share the moment directly and almost immediately.

Attaching the image to a message I sent it directly to Twitpic. From here friends following me on Twitter were sent a message and were able to visit it on the web, to see where I was, what I was up to, and were able to leave a comment about it or should they choose, to download it or link to it themselves. Twitpic also allows annotation and labels to be added to support the image, or titles and tags to be provided. In this process I "collected" the moment, "stored" it on my phone, "prepared" it for upload before "sharing" it. Several other images were also sent to share visually parts of the story of my morning, and these appeared chronologicaly in my Twitpic space. For esafety reasons we are unlikely currently to use a site such as this with primary age students, but the possibilities for a less public moderated space, specifically designed for use in mobile learning and combined with the widespread availablity of camera phones, or web access through 3g and wireless enabled devices and environments do open interesting possibilities for platforms such as this to be used on school visits and so on. In the the not so distant future our previsits could enable the design of virtual tours using mobile devices to structure activities around particular aspects of a place. Inspirational projects such as Mudlarking in Deptford, and the Create A Scape projects carried out through Futurelab have begun to explore and model the possibilities of such ideas and for putting the tools to do so in the hands of the learner. There are also a growing number of downloadable MP3 and phone based audio tours already, one of which over the summer I used to help me explore aspects of Bristol's Docks.

Going Local: Looking at the Process in the Everyday

The principle of "collect, store, prepare and share" relies on a multiple tool approach and underpins many of the processes I personally follow when developing and making multimedia resources to use in class, and the teaching and learning processes I plan to help students compile and make Multimodal Texts.

A Personal Professional context as a model for this might be useful and so I will use the example of preparing a whiteboard notebook. Before making a notebook I usually spend time compiling (collecting and storing) the elements I might need to design and make the tool. Links here are to both external websites and other posts on this blog that reference my use of them. This might include

• Searching for and downloading collections of images. (flickrstorm, Google etc)
• Using my digital camera or scanner to "acquire" or "collect" images that are more relevant to the students, or which they have collected themselves
• Downloading and converting useful video files from for example YouTube via www.zamzar.com, or directly from subscription services such as Espresso
  
• Inputting text, or copying, pasting and reworking relevant text from the web or CD Roms we have in school, or perhaps from services such as Espresso.
  
• Locating useful websites to support our work, and bookmarking or saving their location (tumblr via Kwout or del.icio.us) or alternatively by copying and pasting to word, then saving as a Web Page.
  

This would represent the collect and store part of the process, but as you can see from the twitpics example as a process the latter elements of this are fairly fluid and placing these materials in a shared network space at school will also allow for use by colleagues and students on later tasks, through adaptation.

The prepare part of the process is about how we use these resources to meet our decided purpose, it might involve

• Importing them to relevant pages in a notebook,
• Using the slide or page sorter to reorganise and structure the file to reflect the path we want to follow within the sessions planned
• Further work on editing the text we copied and compiling examples from more than one source
• Cropping and masking images to include only what we want
• Reviewing video and considering how, as well as when we will use it with the notebook
• Developing hide and reveal or other tasks that include the tools we have brought together in the notebook to meet our intentions.

The prepare part of the process is about adaptation, using materials we have found elsewhere and from multiple sources to create something new, personal or professional, something that meets our needs and designing for learning.

The share event will happen when we use it for the first time in class, or so proud of what we have done we show it to a colleague, who also wants to use the material and we involve ourselves in a dialogue about how the tool will be used, or might further be adapted.

What I find useful in looking at the process in this way is how easily I begin to see that many of the resources and tools I collected, prepared and stored, can be further adapted for sharing with and use by the students as extensions of the work we are involved in through the whiteboard as a shared space. Potentially framing ICT based multimodal tasks for students in local applications and tools or online environments. Since I already have the "raw material" I can develop and make tools to support table top tasks, to mediate talk for writing or ast as writing frames. Once I have undergone the "collect and store" process, the materials I have can be made available on the school's local network through a "shared space," or could be uploaded to an online share space such as Honeycomb, Think.com or our VLE, and from here the students can select, work with and use the material themselves to create and design new content. My own web searches will also give me some indication of the types of things that are returned from Internet searches, and help me structure, advise or support the children in the types of queries we might use to return the type of material we are looking for, or prepare me in advance to deal with the unexpected.

If my intention is to create a text type, based on particular research focus rather than the self search process, then the bookmarks I collected can also be shared to provide and frame the work I want my students to engage with and sites I know will help in the process.

This process I feel is a significant shift from what can be seen as teaching with ICT and technologically determined views that often see children plugged into the computer, practicing skills often out of context. It provides potential for an adaptable scaffolded approach, that challenges perceptions using ICTs to "hide behind." Collect, Store, prepare and share sees the user, the teacher in this first instance taking an active part in engaging with and modelling a process that uses a range of tools to support not only their own professional learning but also that sees the user as an active participant in the design and redesign of content, rather than a passive recipient looking for material that exists and just about meets our aims. It presents a model and expectation for our students that they too should learn to use a range of tools to engage with content available.

So why did I begin by wittering about Twitter? Why talk about local networks and file sharing? What has using a local application got to do with online or e learning platforms? The "collect, store, prepare and share," process outlined in various ways above are key features of the principles underpinning my evolving views and many I have read around e and mobile learning, and are central to projects I am currently juggling with, have set out to develop within school and wondering about how to illustrate concretely to colleagues.

The key tool in developing our projects will be the Asus EE "webbooks" we have invested in, not to work as standalone platforms, but to function as "collect, store, prepare and share" tools. The principle which underpins our their role does not see them as the sole devices that students will use in supporting learning with ICT, but as part of a wider tool set. As a platform it is envisaged, students will learn to use their Asus, as a local applications host in the first instance, a place to "collect and prepare" material to work on other projects, as a tool they can use in school and away to compile, edit and "collect" the resources and material they will need either for inclass use or to support the development of collaborative projects with peers. The process as envisaged will require web access and a networked view of learning as a process. The wireless enabled devices should allow us to use online tools such as our VLE, and plugin spaces we are currently working with such as Honeycomb and Think.com to enable students to prepare and share together the work that they are doing. The local model provided above is an illustration of how we as teachers can begin to engage with the principles and modelling process, and how the model works with tools we are already familiar. However we need to look beyond the technology, to see it as an enabler for changes in pedagogical perspective, a social as well as technological tool. The use of Twitter and Twitpics earlier is intended as an illustration of the potential immediacy and accessibility of online mediating and social sharing tools, how accessible and available we can make resources even in the remotest place. While the webbook and VLE represent a point somewhere in between, where we can begin work with colleagues and students alike in testing and exploring the possibilities and challenges to pedagogy these tools represent, while working from the familiar. I would value any thoughts and contributions readers might have around this that would help develop and extend thinking. The principles are intended from my point of view to help guide through the longer term aims and expansion of our project. They have implications for CPD, which have been raised and highlighted by colleagues. It is this alongside comments from colleague Doug Dickinson who suggested I should try to outline what I meant by the process that has prompted this post. I have referred to the principle in several previous posts, and the ideas behind it he suggested might be be helpful to share with other colleagues. I hope that this proves useful in terms of what he suggested, it has certainly helped me to begin to pull together some of my thoughts and tie together a number of previous posts.