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.
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.
Some book rappers from 1K came up with a unique take on their digital story:
Lovely library limericks
The book rappers of 2RM came up with a delightfully imaginative digital story concerning the featured character of Duncan Ball’s “Selby” books: Selby the talking dog.
Selby licks a lollipop: a Candyland adventure
Comments from viewers around the world came in thick and fast, including one from Duncan Ball himself!
Ian McLean with children’s author Duncan Ball at the 2007 NSW Premier’s Reading Challenge ceremony, Taronga Park Zoo, Sydney.
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
The student book rappers of 1G have created a digital slideshow on Photo Peach to accompany the Aboriginal Dreaming story, “How the whale got a hole in his head”, which we learned last term, but had no book version available in the library:
How the whale got a hole in his head
Announcing another Stage 1 digital story based on the Book Week 2012 slogan. As mentioned a few weeks ago, I’m spending two weeks with each class group (about twelve selected students), identified by each class teacher, for 30 mins per day. In this particular example, the teacher wanted every student in her class to have the experience, so Year 1 students of a composite class started a story (theme, character building, some photos) and the Year 2 students finished it (more photos, sequencing, caption writing, editing, etc).
Here is their effort, “Superheroes are champion readers“, hot off the virtual press:
photopeach.com/album/78xb36
Superheroes are champion readers!
Remember that Photo Peach requires the latest version of Flash to view the digital story.
ABOUT PHOTO PEACH:
Please remember that Photo Peach is blocked for student use by the NSW DEC’s web filters. For good reason. It has some very unsavoury stuff on it. Similar to Youtube, no one rates the material. Search “What’s popular” or “What’s new” on the site and you’ll find lots of other… inappropriate stuff. Just like Youtube and other Web 2.0 tools, such as wikis and blogs.
Every time I’ve used the Photo Peach site, it’s under MY username and (secret) password. We work on brainstorming and storyboarding offline, then upload photos or graphics under my direct supervision, edit in small groups, and view our finished products the same way. My username and password, and no one else can change it. No open browsing. Unless you close off open comments, these, too, have to be previewed before each use with students if you notice a new comment has been added.
I’ve written several articles about strategies for use. Click HERE to download a PDF from Scan teacher librarians’ journal (NSW DEC).
or our Guided Inquiry site, featuring lots of Stage 3 persuasive slideshows
or other articles ‘iInquire… iLearn… iCreate… iShare: Stage 1 students create digital stories’ in Scan 30(2) May 2011, pp 4-5.
or a similar idea using PowerPoint instead: ‘Have blog, will storyboard!’ in info@aslansw Issue #2, May 2010, pp 5-8.
Recent NSW DEC book raps have excellent online instructions for using Web 2.0 tools with students. Scroll down on the PDF linked HERE.
On the “Guided Inquiry” site, I have the following warning:
“Teachers and parents: By the way, just a few points to consider with Photo Peach: Use it as judiciously as you would a series of Youtube clips. Don’t permit students to do open browsing; Photo Peach is a Web 2.0 facility that is open to anyone, and the slideshows are ‘unrated’. Also, if you notice that new comments have been added to a slideshow you’ve made, please preview the slideshow again before using it with students so you can monitor (and moderate/remove) unwanted comments. (Or close off comments altogether.) Consider a subscription to Photo Peach, which enables you to add your own or Creative Commons music, a wider range of transitions, and the capacity to download slideshows to your hard drive, web space or a CD.”
While there is some inconvenience with using Photo Peach, it’s still an amazing resource and the benefits outweigh the problems. Small group work enhances opportunities for talking & listening, negotiating and other skills.
As part of our literacy cycle, students in Stage 1 and Early Stage 1 investigate Aboriginal dreaming stories in Term Three.
To accompany this week’s dreaming story, “How the whale got a hole in his head”, here is a useful website that shows an old Aboriginal rock shelf engraving of a large sea creature at Tamarama in Sydney.
A closeup of a humpback whale spouting is here:
Humpback whale footage: extreme close up blowhole
Star fish walking, you can actually see his legs.
Zombie starfish – Nature’s weirdest events: series 4 episode 3 preview – BBC Two
In the version of the Dreaming story we use, Whale’s friend, Starfish, offers to help remove “mulas” from Whale’s skin. Here is a Youtube clip explaining about barnacles:
SeaTalk – Barnacles
STOP PRESS:
The student book rappers of 1G created a digital slideshow on Photo Peach to accompany this Aboriginal Dreaming story:
How the whale got a hole in his head
A group of Stage 1 (Year 2) students have been working on creating a digital story about the Book Week slogan, “Champions read”. We have spent 30 mins per day (for 2 weeks) watching stimulus material, such as The hare and the tortoise (2009) fable. Also brainstorming, character building, storyboarding, taking digital photos, caption writing, editing, and selecting music. They have discussed their effort on the book rap, Join a reading adventure.
See this exciting digital story on Photo Peach!
Champions read!
