This week's workshop was a flying sweep through a swag of sites where students can make avatars, comics, and short films. Here's a rundown...
dfilm.com
I made this short animation on dfilm.com using MovieMaker v2. It uses the "chase" format which is why the characters skim across the screen at the start and end. The program is not suitable for primary students because one of the available characters is highly sexualised. P.S. the super annoying music will stop when the animation stops...
Build your wild self:
www.buildyourwildself.com
Presented by New York Zoos and Aquarium, this is a sweet little activity where you create a character (or avatar) with animal parts. When you're done, short descriptions of the different animal parts are provided. They are interesting little vignettes in themselves and I can imagine some students getting right into it - think of the kid who won't put down Ripley's or The Guinness Book, this activity is for them! Students could be challenged to create a super animal that wou
Presented by New York Zoos and Aquarium, this is a sweet little activity where you create a character (or avatar) with animal parts. When you're done, short descriptions of the different animal parts are provided. They are interesting little vignettes in themselves and I can imagine some students getting right into it - think of the kid who won't put down Ripley's or The Guinness Book, this activity is for them! Students could be challenged to create a super animal that wou
ld be their ideal fantastical pet...
reasonablyclever.com:
I made my lego self on this website in the "kid-safe mini-mizer". This could be used in the beginning of the year as part of the suite of activities where students introduce themselves. The instruction could be "Make yourself as a lego character and write about a day in your favourite lego world." It might be a way to get beyond the usual 'I have a dog. I like swimming...' An open-ended imaginative task and a way for some kids to share something deeper.
xtranormal.com
This movie making animation program is extra user-friendly. The buttons are easy to use. The preview generator only takes about one minute to load and you can still make changes while it's loading. I'm impressed.
As a classroom activity it is suitable for upper primary students as it is easier to navigate if you are a proficient reader. Students will need to create an account in order to use it and that requires an email address.
catchmentdetox.com.au
This is a very sophisticated and detailed program where students play to increase the population and income of their catchment while managing the environmental impacts of their choices. This site is different to all the others we have looked at in this class because I don't think it would be given justice (or that kids would even like it) unless it was supported by a decent sized inquiry unit on water, land management, rivers or similar.
Given my background in conservation and land management, I might be at risk of over-thinking the program (and this topic in general), but I would like to use it in a way that honours its sophistication... The site provides lots of links and information about catchment processes which would support teachers but most of it is probably too dense and dry for students to negotiate independently (unless, of course, they had a special passion). I would like to see students (grade 6+) work in small groups which could be further broken down so that each student represented an 'interest' group within the community because the main task of catchment authorities in real life is mediating different interest groups. The game could run for the duration of the unit with students documenting the changes they make as they learn more about catchments.
toondoo.com
Maybe I'm just getting tired but I found this program laborious. Students could sign up for a free account or the site offers secure forums for classroom groups for a fee. It was quick and easy to create the account but again, kids would need an email account to sign up.
This simple little comic was easy enough to create but my earlier attempts were frustrating - the site first suggested that I use Commonwealth Games themed characters and then hid the icons from me. Another annoying feature is that you can't resize the characters... grrr.
