Photo Story 3 - Create your own stories

Photo Story 3 

Create your own stories with pictures

I would like to tell you about a Windows program that I have used in preschool with children as young as 3 to 6 years. It is a program from Microsoft and it is called Photo Story 3. The best thing with the program is that is for free to download to your computer and very easy to learn and use. You can use it as a private person to personalize your pictures adding sound, titles or background music of your choice so that you can enjoy your favourite moments or you can make a professional presentation out of your photos and images. Photo Story saves your photo project as WMV files (window media video files) so that you can play it on your computer. Finished picture files can be small enough to send by email, too.

When you download Photo Story 3 and open the program the wizard offers you three choices, that is: Begin a new story, edit a project, or play a story. 

The program offers help to all beginners by explaining every step and even provides extras as advises, tips and tricks so that you can get the best out of your picture project. It is very simple to use for teachers in any subject or theme. By showing pictures and adding text the children are more likely to remember and learn. What better way to learn than to do it yourself. You can as teacher ask your pupils to make a project in small groups about a subject letting them search the web and gather information and pictures about the subject. Then when they are finished they can play the presentation for their classmates.

In my preschool department where I was working the children ages were 3 to 6 years. We the teachers always worked after a theme and we always took many pictures and did portfolios to every child. The children where always so good at dramatization and the parents only saw the pictures and not the real show. So one day we decided to create a story with our pictures by using Photo Story 3. It was a perfect way to show the parents what their children do in one day when they are at preschool. We collected many photos of children’s performance and imported them in Photo Story. Then by the help of children we recorded their voices so they could tell us what was happening during the picture film. The children even as young as they were they could help us by telling us in which order the pictures should be. They could then say what they did in the pictures and we recorded their voices. I think it was fun and educational for them as it was for us.

Photo Story 3 is a great program for beginners even as young as preschool children. It is a great way to introduce ICT (Information and Communications Technology) to pupils. 

So start sharing your stories today!

 This is a YouTube video of how a Photo Story works

Interactive resource

In my previous teaching position I have the possibility to use the digital Cleverboard. It is the same as a digital Whiteboard. We had one in every classroom on the school. Before we got the Cleverboard all the educators had to undergo training in how to use the Cleverboard. We also get some ideas on exercises and webpage we could use when we teaching English and other school subjects. On Projector and a computer was connected to the Cleverboard. I also had a small plate, like an IPad, that I could use and write on and then the text come up on the Cleverboard.

When I started a new area in English I prepared short movies, texts that we could read together in the classroom. We also write texts together on the Cleverboard. In Västerviks municipality there I was working, we had an agreement with AV-media there we could borrow movies, also a camera and a video camera as we could use when we take pictures and record  movies when we worked with theater.

A program I often used was Lynx 4 there I could prepare different exercises as I then used when I teach English, such Memory as the students could use when we practice new words. The problem we often have is that we don´t have enough time to prepared own exercises.

A very good webpage is prissans.blogspot.se there is it a lot of ideas you can use when you working with the Cleverboard. Another means as useful is “Inläsningstjänst”. The school must have an agreement with them. There you can download audio books as we can listen on together in the classroom. A very good function is that you can scan in books and mail them to your email then you can see it on the Cleverboard.

On my school there I worked today we don´t have Cleverboard but we have a Projector and I can still use the web and the computer when I teach English together with the students.

To use interactive resource give me the possible to make varying, fun and stimulated English lessons together with my students.

Pernilla

Audio - Lingua

I would like to share my experiences of the website “Audio-Lingua”. This website is a bank of recordings by native speakers and the recordings are free to use. You can listen online, download the mp3 files or subscribe to a podcast.

“Audio-Lingua” offers recordings in a variety of languages and in varying degrees of severity. They are also classified according to CEFR which makes them especially good to use since the syllabus for English in Lgr 11 is based upon CEFR.

The languages you can choose from are English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Chinese, Occitan or Arabic.

Anyone who wants to can send in personal audio documents and therefor you can listen not only to different languages but also to different accents. This is very good when it comes to train oral comprehension I think, since my students are so used to listening to me speaking English. They learn to understand me, but will have a hard time understanding others. By using “Audio-Lingua” they can listen to authentic English spoken with different accents and at different speed.

You can browse to find suitable audio files for your group of students and their interests. You can listen to someone describing their room or a day at school as well as a receipes or a riddle.

I use this website quite often and I download the files I find useful for whatever the lesson´s going to be about. I post the audio file in the blog on UNIKUM (which is the communication channel for homework in my class) for the students to listen to in advance. Sometimes I also give them questions to answer to check their oral comprehension.

I hope that I inspired you to check out this website and that you will find it useful.

     Lisa Ringström

  Link to Audio-Lingua
 

Raz-Kidz;

 The website where students 

practice reading online 

– anytime, anywhere

My favourite ICT resource when it comes to teaching English is www.raz-kids.com. It’s a website where the children can listen to animated leveled books, read aloud, read with or without support, practice comprehension with quizzes and record their reading, all at their own level.

As a teacher you assess the children and selects level of reading that suits their needs. You create an account for each student; the students can reach the account from any computer, home or in school.

The students have only access to their own accounts with leveled books.

Advantages to the students.

* Learn new words and pronunciation by listening to the books.

* Practice reading at the right level, when they finish one level they step up to the next.

* Practice comprehension with quizzes that comes with the books.

* Possibility to record and listen to their own reading.

* A reward system encourages and motivates.

Benefits for you as a teacher.

* You can log the students reading and comprehension in an easy way, it’s there in the teacher’s corner.

* Can be used as a benchmark system where you select the level, the student then read the book and record it. You as a teacher can at your convenience easily review the students reading and get the result.

* You don’t have to find new books for the students to read; the students find them in Raz-Kids. (They will not forget the books at home…)

And best of all, all above mentioned can take place wherever you have a computer and Internet access and when you got the time, both as a student and as a teacher.

The system is very self instructed which means that the students can handle it independently. Moreover, the students are able to handle their reading by them self, even if the parents are not available.

The cost is $99.95 per class (36 student) per year; it’s about 18 SEK/year and student.

Finally, on the same website you can find Reading A-Z, more reading, Vocabulary A-Z, words, language art and much more, Writing A-Z and Science A-Z.

Enjoy,

Christina Olsson

Liber.se

Michaela Bodin - Liber.se

 

I have chosen to write about a website that I know a lot of my English students use in their education. The site is called liber.se and it’s a site for many different jobs due to education and learning. The site is mainly for buying new books for your subject but as a student you can use it to learn words you have for homework.

A lot of my students used glosboken.se which I think it’s a very good website to learn your words. The problem for some of my students was that they didn’t have the energy to type new words into glosboken.se every week and therefore they started to use liber.se.

When you enter the site you click on a pile of books where is says F-9 and after that you choose which grade you are in. For example my students choose 4-6 because they are in the sixth grade and then they choose the book they have in school. If you have Good stuff A as your textbook you click on Good stuff A.
After you chosen your textbook and clicked on it you click on “glosmaskinen” and you will see all the chapters found in Good stuff A textbook. You will after that be able to choose the chapter you are working with and you can see all the words connected to that chapter. You can choose to practice on all the words to the chosen chapter or you can click and just practice on some of them.

You will see how many words you have answered and how many rights and wrongs you
 receive.

The benefits I see with liber.se are that you can start right away with your glossaries and that you have them written already. You can practice as many times as you like and you can share the glossaries with others. “Glosmaskinen” works in other languages too for example Spanish. You have access all the time and don't need an account.

The disadvantage is that you can’t listen to the pronunciation of the word and you have to use some of the textbooks shown on the site.

Although there are a lot of different kind of educational materials on liber.se and I think many of you will find the books you use at your school.
As a student you will need access to a computer with internet in school or at home.

 

I have seen a better result with my English students in fifth and sixth grade when they have words for homework. They challenge themselves to receive as many marks as possible. I think its good to show students ways of learning new words and liber is one of them.

 I have also used it in class by connect my computer to our projector we have in our classroom. 

We have looked at the words and pronounced them together. We also have had competitions dividing the class in two. Each group got a chapter we worked with and helped each other to get as many marks as possible.

I can recommend liber.se!

 

Best regards/

Michaela 

 

IPAD

What the resource is and how it works

An iPAD is a tablet computer. It´s small and weigh very little so it´s easy to bring wherever you´re going. You can use the iPAD as a camera, taking pictures or making movies. You can also use it as a recorder, or play music on it. Or just as a computer, surfing on internet, checking your e-mail or using different apps. It has a multi-touch screen that reacts as soon as you touch it. You can easily add different apps to the iPAD which makes it very suitable for school-activities.

One thing to consider when you´re thinking about getting iPADs as a tool in your school is that you need to have some place where you easily can charge the batteries. Either in a small room or in some kind of a locker. Because it´s very annoying if you´re working with your iPADs and the battery runs out. Another thing you have to fix before using them is that you have to have an apple-account so that you can download different apps to your iPADs.

If you are using the iPADs for surfing on the internet you need to have wireless internet in your school (something I believe most of the schools have nowadays).

How the resource can be used by teachers and by pupils

As I wrote earlier the iPAD can be used as a computer, but you can do so much more than that. As a teacher the iPAD is a good resource because of its small size. You can always bring it wherever you´re going, home, to a meeting, to a class etc. You can write your notes on it, and therefore you know where you have your notes, and you don´t have to spend a hole afternoon looking for them. You can always check your e-mail. You can tell your pupils to send their homework or assignments to your e-mail. Once again you know where you have all the paperwork and you can bring the work home without having to carry a huge bag. After you have correct the works you can easily send them back to the pupils by e-mail.

Since you always have the internet with you in class, you and your pupils can without any problem use the iPADs to search for information about subjects that you´re wondering about. By doing that it´s easy as a teacher to capture the pupils interest instantly.

There are a lot of apps to use in school, in every subject. Of course there are both good and bad apps. It´s important to try the app yourself before letting the students try it. A good tip is to have a cooperation with the other teacher at your school, talk with each other and give each other tips on good apps. Maybe you can have a board in the staffroom or a site on the internet where you can write down which apps you have been using and what the app trains.

During class you can use the iPAD in many different ways. If you´re using it in an English lesson one good thing to do is to record the students, when they are talking or maybe playing an act or something like that. By doing that the pupils can hear themselves afterwards, which is very good when you´re training on the pronunciation.

On big win with the iPAD is that the pupils often finds it fun to work with them, and we all know that if something is fun its more likely that more will be done. And for those pupils that have a hard time with their handwriting the iPAD is a good tool. By writing on the iPAD each pupils work will look just as good, which is a boost for the self-confidence.  

Other considerations when you´re using iPADs.

One thing to consider when you are using iPADs in school is to have rules on how to use it. To make clear for the students that it´s no toy, and that they have to use the apps that the teacher says, and if they are surfing on the internet they should follow the instructions from the teacher. But my experience says that it´s no big problem. The children of today is used to handle these kind of tools, and knows how to use them. They know that when I´m in school the iPad (or computer or other ICT tools) are for my knowledge, and when I´m home I can use it as a toy.

Of course the iPads cost a lot of money, and they will break, and they needs updates sometimes. Therefore it´s a good thing to have someone at your school who can handle all of these things. Because otherwise it will take too much of your precious time, and the risk is that you won´t be able to fix the problems, and therefore you won´t be using them anymore, which is a shame since it´s a very helpful tool in school when it´s working!

/Malin Silén

Emma Hedin: Draw A Stickman

There is an English interactive teaching tool that I have used. It is quite simple actually. It consists in this webpage: www.drawastickman.com. There you can choose between two episodes to do. One has a dragon as title picture and the other one a tree. You choose which one you want to "play" and press on it. A square will appear and by it there will be a instruction that says: "Draw a stickman."

When you have done that you press: Done. Your stickman now comes alive and starts walking across the screen. You will recieve a instructions of what to do next. It includes drawing. Everything you draw comes to life on the screen. The instructions are all in English.

You can make it work in different ways. Either the whole class together on a Smart Board/Clever Board or if students have their personal computers those can be used as well.

I used this resource in a grade two class and a grade four. In the fourth grade class  the students were really good at English so I could basically let them just try and figure out the instructions with the help from each other or by dictionaries. I was a substitute teacher in that class and it was the last 20 minutes of the day and week and the teacher assistant and I decided to give the kids a "fun" exercise as a reward for acting so nice to each other and me. We also wanted to see if they could be trusted to be "let loose" on their computers.

In the second grade we did this exercise together. I started the clever board and got us onto the website. I let one of the kids, randomly chosen, draw the stickman. She then sat down again and I pressed: "Done." The students laughed happily and were in awe when they saw her stickman walk across the screen.

Sad to say I used a lot of the translating form of education here but we also discuessed and asked questions by every given instruction. We had chosen episode 1 and one of the things you are instructed to draw is a sword. We discussed it then: What does a sword look like? Does one drawn line make a sword? Why? or Why not? The students had a lot of ideas about that. We tried as much as possible to discuss in English. One reply I got was:
"No it can't be a sword." When I asked said student to try to say it in English she said: "Sword or stick?"
A pretty good question and the other students understood that she wondered: "How do you know if it is a sword or a stick?"

The students thoroughly enjoyed it and we used the exercise to learn a few new words as well. Like:

• Sword 
• Stick
• Stickman
• Cloud
• Drain
• Bottom of
• Creative

We ran into some problems at one point when the Clever Board decided to go on strike. The interactive pen stopped working. But we could use the computer hooked up to the clever board to draw so it was okay.

Another problem can be kids feeling that it's unfair that they didn't get to draw. But sadly there isn't enough things to draw for everybody. But everyone could suggest things when we discussed and they seemed to have had a lot of fun when doing that. Some of their ideas were very amusing to me and a lot of it sadly got said in Swedish instead of English but they tried.

What made me the happiest though was when a student was instructed to draw a key and asked what a key was. His classmates helped him out. One boy said, in English which made me extra happy: "You open your bike with one!"
 I think this webbpage is both fun and can be used as a good tool. But what do you think or do you have suggestions on how to make it an even better learning experience?