Adventures in Teaching and Learning

Hmm. I am wanting to embed a swf file … I have had fun experimenting with CrazyTalk this evening. I now have three talking philosophers. However, I want to include them in a Keynote presentation, and therein lies the problem (or two). The CrazyTalk video seems to be far too big (it’s in GB rather than MB …) to move easily from computer to computer attached to internet, and I feel that downloading something this big could prove problematic. Secondly, I am trying to add a GarageBand audio that I’ve recorded, and even though I am following the instructions (ie drag the file into the slide that you want it to play over), nothing is happening. I don’t think the slide is recognising the file, even though I have saved it as an iLife project, and it has a little guitar logo. Can anybody help?! Thanks.

Comic Life

Originally uploaded by T Ware.

This is Tessa’s first attempt at using Comic Life. I think it’s excellent, so have decided to post it here to remind me of how this can be used, and to share it with everyone else on the Transformation Teachers project, so we can all begin sharing photos.

I’ve particularly enjoyed using Comic Life and Photo Booth this evening … but am concerned that I can’t get any sound on crazy talk. All my plans for a talking Jeremy Bentham are going astray!

It’s been fun getting the Mac and getting to fiddle around with a variety of applications. I suppose soon I’ll need to sit down and work out exactly what I want to do as my research. I have three groups in particular that I’m thinking of. For my AS class, I think I will try to create some iMovies for revision purposes. Could be embarrassing though! Ethics is not my strongest area of subject knowledge. Secondly, my Year 7 class has major issues with behaviour … anything that might help to grab their attention away from each other and onto the subject would be great. Finally, my Year 10s … I want to support their exam technique, perhaps using the Digiboards. (Is that what they’re called?)

My other issue is that I can’t connnect to the internet at the moment! I hope I can fix that sooner rather than later … very frustrating to have to swap between two computers all the time eg when using Flickr. Hope I’m not frustrated for too long.

I’m at the CLC learning how to do lots of amazing things on my new MacBook … Very excited and I’m looking forward to trying everything out at home. I’m a bit frustrated, though, at the fact that I can’t access the internet – I hope it works okay at home! Claire has let me use her internet today, though.

We’re just being told about the task for next time. We’ve to try to use as many different software packages as possible and produce something small. Or big. Something.

So … today we’ve learnt about CrazyTalk, ComicLife, Pages, Keynote, GarageBand, Fronter, iMovies, iPhoto … I have recorded some of the talks, and need to work out how to make them into podcasts.

I will blog later to describe some of the things we’ve done.

I took my Year 7s to the ICT room yesterday, and meant to record them working. Unfortunately, I forgot … until the end of the lesson when we were tidying up. So I asked the stragglers if they would mind being videoed answering some questions, and they were quite keen. I asked them what they had been doing in the lesson, how that might help them in the future, and what they enjoyed about RE. Interestingly, the first lesson that came to mind for one of the boys was of a spur of the moment lesson featuring a Kar2ouche presentation about forgiveness, which told the story of the Poppy Day bombings, and featured recorded interviews as well as words and pictures. I’m interested in finding out more about that … it looks a bit fiddly at the moment (I have a copy on inspection).

Yesterday, with my Year 7 class, I tried using a powerpoint which featured short clips of me explaining things. Other than issues refarding behaviour, which meant that they didn’t get the benefit of my explanations, there were two technical issues.

First of all, the format in which I had saved the videos (using Quicktime) did not work on my class PC. Fortunately I had foreseen that there might be a problem with using video for the first time, and I had copied all the videos onto a CD-ROM, and was able to re-attach them to the powerpoint. However, the main issue I then faced was that whilst the audio ran as normal, the video worked in slow motion. Horrible. It looked vaguely obscene, not what I wanted to portray to my Year 7s! Not sure if it’s an issue with PCs in general or just my PC. Met Steve B yesterday, so I’ve told him, and will speak to one of our technicians today. Hope we can get it to work normally!

Last night, I had a great idea. My husband is an artist, and started talking about a film he wanted to make. It would consist of talking heads answering questions. I had been thinking about my AS podcasting plan. Suddenly realised that we could put videos into powerpoint … so we decided to try it out. We took a few short videos of me answering questions, then had a slide with the question, then on the next slide inputted me talking … set up the slide transition to move on automatically within a few seconds, and result! A loop presentation which has the question, then me answering it, another question, me answering again, and so on! The possibilities are endless!

I could use images of me explaining things to the class so that they might hear and listen more carefully … probably I could add subtitles … I could even team teach with myself! I could support pupils in the classroom as I go through the instructions on the screen!

Just being given the camera has already opened up so many avenues, and even without the training I am trying things out for myself. Can’t wait until I can do more!

IMG_0003

Originally uploaded by skambalu.

We always get healthy food at the CLC.

(Just continuing practicing blogging photos from Flickr!)

Bibles

Originally uploaded by skambalu.

Here’s a photo I took of the Bibles in my classroom. I like closeups. I might be able to use this in a powerpoint about the Bible.

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.