Week 4

Digital Movie Making this week was a slight disaster. We recorded our movie, which went quite well and no tecnical issues while recording. There was a slight issue that our seismometer didn't work, but this is something that we will reflect upon on our video. This week we were supposed to be editting. But this did not happen. This was due to there being a compatibility issue between the iphone and windows movie maker. We had to change the format of the videos, but we did not have the appropriate software, nor did we have the skills to do this. As a teacher, this shows me the importance of checking software before teaching a class and being able to ensure that it should work. It also stresses to me that there should always be a back-up plan when taking an IT lesson. As a group, we scapped the editting for this week, due to insufficient knowledge and moved on to create a wikispace.

 The wikispace is used to hold information and share with other people. We used our wikispace to discuss information we found out about Earthquakes in our research. (Our wikispace can be accessed here.) This was an easy process to do collaboratively and something I would use within a classroom. Pupils could either work together on the whole thing, or can be assigned a page each to work on. As long as pupils have the link and the log-in details, they can edit the pages. Wikispaces can be both public and private. I would advise private stuff to be used within a classroom until moderated by a teacher.


Also this week, we looked at storybird. Mel and myself collaborated together to create a story. This was a great tool and something that I would use with younger children as well as older children. Using it with older children, I would ask them to write a story to perhaps use with a younger pupil for paired reading etc.

Paired reading is a fantastic way to help pupils read in school. Although some pupils believe that the younger pupils are the only ones that learn from paired reading. I believe this is not the case.  I would allow younger pupils, including nursery to just experiment with the tools. I would try and encourage them to add text, but if focusing on nursery, I would not put emphasis on this and would be very pleased with just the connect between text in stories. This would be a sign of emergent writing. If pupils are making the connection that stories have both images and texts, then they are beginning to develop their knowledge and understanding of story books.

I think pupils would find storybird fun and exciting and a good collaborative process. I think the advantages would include being easy to use and it helps collaboration between pupils. A disadvantage would be any one can edit the wiki, unless it is set to private. Another blogger has evaluated wikispaces.


This week, I bought a blackberry. I was torn between an iPhone and a Blackberry but due to pricing, I chose the Blackberry. Next week I intend on evaluating the blackberry (providing I have figured out how to use it!) and reflect upon the educational values on the Blackberry.