Thursday, December 2, 2010

Claymation, Digital Storytelling, and a lot more!

Frames 4

Frames is educational software for stop-motion animation, claymation, and digital storytelling. Creating illustrated animations, movies, and digital stories engages students in the curriculum, encourages problem solving, promotes creativity, and helps students develop 21st century skills. Students can use Frames to create movies, animated GIF files, and Flash animations to share with the world. This software tool is available to all TCDSB teachers ... all you need to do is ask AICT and voila!

Watch this video and learn more about the power of Frames 4.


Digital StorytellingDigital storytelling is an effective way to engage students in their learning. Creating digital stories with Frames develops students’ ability to interpret events beyond their immediate experience and builds planning, organizational, and time management skills

Cel AnimationCommunicating visually is an essential 21st-century skill. With Frames integrated drawing tools, students can illustrate their own animated diagrams, graphs, procedures, and more, helping them understand concepts that are difficult to explain using text alone.

Clay AnimationNothing engages students more than creating clay animation! Use Frames to transform your classroom into an active learning environment and begin having your student develop exciting cross-curricular group projects that incorporate writing and technology skills

Shwup's Up

Create Audio Slideshows With Shwup

Shwup is a new service similar to Animoto and Stupeflix for creating videos based on your images and audio files. At its most basic Shwup is a place for creating collaborative private photo albums. As the creator of an album you can select the best images and create a video for the group. You can choose to share your videos privately so that only those you invite can see them or you can share your videos on Facebook, Twitter, or embed them into your blog.

Here, watch this video ...



Applications for Education
Shwup could be a good way to share photos from your class with your students' parents. If you take your class on a field trip and have parents take pictures while they chaperon they could contribute to a private album you've created on Shwup.

Getting Boys to Read

Guys Read

Getting boys to read is one of biggest challenges facing elementary teachers. Guys Read is a website designed to promote reading among boys in all grades. Guys Read has book lists, short stories, and free classroom visuals to promote reading among boys. The website has a graphic design that appeals to male students. Believe me, I liked it a lot ... and I'm a guy!

Application for Educators
Guys Read provides free classroom visuals for teachers. The website provides recommendations that students can read to help them find a book that will meet their interests. The Guys Read Anthology is a nice collection of stories that will appeal to a male audience.

Books Should Be Free ... and here they are!

Books Should Be Free

Here's an absolute gem of a site. You can get hundreds of books to listen to ... Believe it or not, you can download the mp3 or iPod file and have it on your laptop for use. You hold up the book and listen to the story ... or have the kids animate a story to what they hear.

Children's Storybooks Online

Children's Storybooks

Here are more ebooks and online reading ... More books, more fun, more learning (shhh, don't say this too loud). Some books you just read by yourself while others have accompanying audio. Fabulous for primary kids and the young at heart.

Child Bible Story Online

Child Bible Story Online

What a simple site to use. Look and listen as you can select from Old Testament and New Testament stories. They are a different way to do an old thing!

Children's Stories in Audio Format ... Listen!

Childrens' Stories

Follow along as you listen to these online stories ... Lots to choose from and you can do one story every day of the school year and still you will not exhaust the collection. Great stuff!

EText and Audio Books ... Sit Back and Enjoy!


LoudLit.org
Choose a book and enjoy. Free to use.

Listen as We Read - Great for All Ages

Storyline Online
What a great site to go to ... Listen to popular books read to you by famous people. Have James Earl Jones read to you and tell you a bit about himself. This site is well put together and full of little add-ons like questions to ask kids for higher-level thinking.