Another Photo Peach slideshow is restored!
What’s in the egg?: an interactive quiz
Category Archives: ICT
Monloc restored!
In 2011, a group of Stage 3 students created a series of storyboards and a wonderful final science fiction digital story for the Shaun Tan Book Rap, inspired by such audio, visual (and audiovisual) delights as The lost thing. Poor Monloc the protector was lost in the Great PhotoPeach Data Crash of December 2012, but has now been restored to a new URL. His creators, the Lost Bottlecap Collectors, have all gone off to various high schools, but I know they revisit our school pages every now and then. We hope you (and they) will enjoy Monloc’s triumphant return from near-oblivion:
Monloc the protector by the Lost Bottlecap Collectors of Penrith PS
Wrapping up Book Week
A few months ago, I did a presentation to the MANTLE Teacher Librarians’ Conference in Newcastle about creating book trailers and digital stories. As part of the preparation, a series of space and science fiction related digital photos had been newly uploaded to Photo Peach (“Here’s one I prepared earlier…” again) and I was able to demonstrate how images could be easily moved, duplicated or deleted in the editing process.
During the presentation, members of the audience suggested a few possible captions, in keeping with Book Week’s “Read Across the Universe” theme, and my intention was to get the Stage 3 students, back at school, to complete the brainstorming of the rest of the captions during Book Week. As the events of that week overwhelmed us, I filed away the groups’ A3 planning sheets, but dug them out again this week – and was thrilled with their results.
As promised, here is the finished slideshow:
Read across the universe by 5/6E
and an additional set of bookish/SF images that got the students’ conversations going:
Book Week 2013
A reminder to those on iPads: the latest version of Flash is required, so you’ll need to use a regular computer to see Photo Peach slideshows.
By the way, we found “Robot jokes” during a Google search:
boyslife.org/about-scouts/merit-badge-resources/robotics/19223/robot-jokes/
and we were surprised to find that there are interactive “Yoda speech generator” sites (it started out as a joke that there might be one – and there were several!), such as:
www.yodaspeak.co.uk/
And this just in: the Tuesday Library Book Club at Wyong High School was inspired by my presentation at MANTLE and spent some time with their teacher librarian, Ms Murray, making claymation figures to create an Animoto audiovisual to celebrate Book Week 2013 and its theme HERE. Wow!
Book trailers and other digital stories
This presentation to the teacher-librarians of Granville District, followed by a practical workshop, looks at how teacher-librarians can work with students to create book trailers to enrich learning, maximising the engagement of students in literacy activities. Applications used to make trailers will be looked at and discussed, also how they can be used as a resource in a school library and in classrooms, and how they can help promote reading.
The kookaburra who stole the moon: retold by Class 1/2Sa
* BRAINSTORMING (using Circle Time) – consider audience, theme, length, 30 images
* STORYBOARDING (using a book rap template) – small groups
* WILL YOU USE PHOTOS (“Creative Commons”), drawings, cutouts, puppets, toys, claymation, or actors in dress-up box clothing?
* UPLOADING – to Photo Peach or other Web 2.0 facility – Flickr slideshow, PowerPoint/Keynote, podcast/Youtube, IWB Notebook software?
* EDITING, and adjusting timing to the selected music
* SHARING with the wider community – monitor incoming public comments regularly, or close them off.
* RAP RESOURCES (NSW DEC) for making digital stories and book trailers
* FLICKR slideshow repositories – and with CAPTIONS added or EXPLORE Creative Commons
* Commercial BOOK TRAILERS on Youtube, eg:
In the lion book trailer – James Foley
* This year’s CBCA Book Week theme was: “Read across the universe”. A starting point?
* The kookaburra who stole the moon on FLICKR, and also on PHOTO PEACH.
Further reading (articles by Ian McLean):
* ‘iInquire… iLearn… iCreate… iShare: Stage 1 students create digital stories’ in Scan 30(2) May 2011, pp 4-5.
Stage 1 students narrate how they inquire, learn, create and share with ICT and Web 2.0 to produce online Photo Peach slideshows at Penrith Public School. View the article online HERE. The Photo Peach slideshow featured in this article is recently restored, and now located at photopeach.com/album/18cw2b6.
* ‘Have blog, will storyboard!’ in info@aslansw Issue #2, May 2010, pp 5-8.
Stage 2 students at Penrith Public School created storyboards and PowerPoint digital stories as resources to support Early Stage 1 and Stage 1 students working on the Bear and Chook books rap, which ran during the subsequent term.
* ‘Circle time: maximising opportunities for talking and listening at Penrith Public School’ in Scan 26(4) November 2007, pp 4-7.
Circle Time is a structured framework for social and emotional learning which promotes a positive class ethos. Moving from class teacher back into the school library, I incorporated Circle Time and information skills into a range of collaborative literacy and ICT activities, including book raps.
QR codes and MANTLE conference
Workshop 1:
QR codes – those now-ubiquitous, distinctive, square barcodes – are on advertising posters, business cards and websites. For last year’s MANTLE conference, I made use of a QR code phone app, I-nigma, from iTunes. Apart from a few tests, I haven’t really done very much with this aspect of technology. But the possibilities may be endless!
I have created QR codes for the websites I am referencing in my MANTLE talks this week. For example:
Booked Inn blog
GoldQuest blog
Penrith PS Library wiki
My PhotoPeach profile page
PMBW TL professional learning group
NSW DEC CLIC raps and book raps
Stage 3’s Endangered animals: beyond the rainforest
Workshop 2: This workshop will look at how to make book trailers and their use in engaging students in literacy and reading activities. Applications used to make trailers will be looked at and discussed, also how they can be used as a resource in a school library and in classrooms and how they can help promote literacy and reading. Ways to engage students in these resources to augment their learning experiences will be modeled and discussed.
* Brainstorming (using Circle Time) – consider audience, theme, length, 30 images
* Storyboarding (using a book rap template) – small groups
* Will you use photos (“Creative Commons”), drawings, cutouts, puppets, toys, claymation, or actors in dress-up box clothing?
* Upload – to Photo Peach or other Web 2.0 facility – Flickr slideshow, PowerPoint/Keynote, podcast/Youtube, IWB Notebook software?
* Edit, adjust timing to the selected music
* Share with wider community – monitor incoming public comments regularly, or close them off.
* Rap resources (NSW DEC) for making digital stories and book trailers
* Flickr slideshow repositories – and with captions added or Explore Creative Commons
* Commercial book trailers on Youtube, eg:
In the lion book trailer – James Foley
* This year’s CBCA Book Week theme is: “Read across the universe”. A starting point?
Further reading (articles by Ian McLean):
* ‘iInquire… iLearn… iCreate… iShare: Stage 1 students create digital stories’ in Scan 30(2) May 2011, pp 4-5.
Stage 1 students narrate how they inquire, learn, create and share with ICT and Web 2.0 to produce online Photo Peach slideshows at Penrith Public School. View the article online HERE.
* ‘Have blog, will storyboard!’ in info@aslansw Issue #2, May 2010, pp 5-8.
Stage 2 students at Penrith Public School created storyboards and PowerPoint digital stories as resources to support Early Stage 1 and Stage 1 students working on the Bear and Chook books rap, which ran during the subsequent term.
* ‘Circle time: maximising opportunities for talking and listening at Penrith Public School’ in Scan 26(4) November 2007, pp 4-7.
Circle Time is a structured framework for social and emotional learning which promotes a positive class ethos. Moving from class teacher back into the school library, I incorporated Circle Time and information skills into a range of collaborative literacy and ICT activities, including book raps.
UPDATE to Workshop 2:
During the above presentation, members of the audience suggested a few possible captions, in keeping with Book Week’s “Read Across the Universe” theme, and my intention was to get the Stage 3 students, back at school, to complete the brainstorming of the rest of the captions during Book Week. As the events of that week overwhelmed us, I filed away the groups’ A3 planning sheets, but dug them out again this week – and was thrilled with their results. A reminder to those on iPads: the latest version of Flash is required, so you’ll need to use a regular computer to see Photo Peach slideshows.
As promised, here is the finished slideshow:
Read across the universe by 5/6E
and an additional set of bookish/SF images that got the students’ conversations going:
Book Week 2013
By the way, we found “Robot jokes” during a Google search:
boyslife.org/about-scouts/merit-badge-resources/robotics/19223/robot-jokes/
and we were surprised to find that there are interactive “Yoda speech generator” sites (it started out as a joke that there might be one – and there were several!), such as:
www.yodaspeak.co.uk/
Relaunching Baa baa black sheep!
Second anniversary of All Black Day
In February 2011, Christchurch, NZ, was devastated by an earthquake and a month later the teacher librarians of Australia, and their schools, rallied behind a fundraising campaign called “All Black Day”. My school created a slideshow (and added to it a few days later with additional photos), but in the Great Photo Peach Crash of December 2012, we suffered our own disaster.
I have had to retrieve all the images from Flickr‘s Creative Commons and various home computers. Today is the two-year anniversary of All Black Day. Please note that the slideshow now has a new URL:
photopeach.com/album/y7vl7s
All Black Day: Christchurch earthquake appeal, 2011
I shall keep you posted as other slideshows from my Photo Peach site get restored.
The Great Photo Peach Crash of 2012
Hi all – from Long Service Leave Land,
I’m not sure how many of you are aware that the free online facility for making digital slideshows, Photo Peach, had a massive crash in mid December, when its owners were trying to do a major upgrade. Despite their efforts, two backup servers failed simultaneously and they’ve unfortunately lost about 50% of people’s stored data between two specific dates. Sadly, this has meant numerous pieces of my work with students have lost their images – and sometimes the captions as well. The good news is that I can slowly rebuild the slideshows (which will give each one a new URL, and will require lots of changes to old blog entries and bookmarks) – thank goodness I saved all the students’ paper storyboards for the trickiest ones (ie. the Stage 3 students’ Endangered animals: beyond the rainforest Guided Inquiry material of 2011).
I had only just bought a Photo Peach subscription for my own material, but had not yet downloaded anything to my hard drive (which is the main reason for purchasing a subscription). “Endangered animals” was not included in the subscription, being on a separate, free, user account, so it’s been quite traumatic facing this loss. It seems that viewer comments (and most of our lists of Creative Commons photographers, whose Flickr pics were used) are safely preserved on the now-skeletal slideshows, so I am even able to restore these. Very time consuming, but hopefully worth it, since I use – and revisit with students – this material often, including at professional development presentations with teachers.
With Chinese New Year approaching, I’ve just recreated Dragon parade! and it’s now newly located at:
photopeach.com/album/13c5mli.
Dragon parade!
Penrith PS mural is also restored at:
photopeach.com/album/mcj05a.
Penrith PS mural
I shall keep you posted as other popular slideshows get restored.
Writing tips from Deb Abela
This week is the last week of formal lessons in the school library. The Stage 2 and Stage 3 students are investigating the websites of Judith Ridge (WestWords, particularly the “Book Club” section), and the writing tips of popular author, Deborah Abela.
At a recent teacher-librarians’ professional learning day, Deb introduced us to the highly motivating Story Starter Scrambler machine, on the Scholastic website.
Deb’s very persuasive Youtube book trailers are at:
Grimsdon
The remarkable secret of Aurelie Bonhoffen
Ghost Club
To finish off we will read Chapter 1 of Deb’s novel, Max Remy, super spy.
Pupils make most of web in storytelling adventure
Stage 1 students are media stars again! The full article by Jessica Aquilina is HERE, courtesy of today’s Penrith City Star newspaper. Above photo courtesy of Gary Warrick, Penrith City Star.
Our digital stories are here:
Champions read!
Superheroes are champion readers!
How the whale got a hole in his head
Selby licks a lollipop: a Candyland adventure
Lovely library limericks
The elephant’s child
The three little pigs