ICT Tools -Group 2: Images, Podcasts & Digital Video

ICT Tools-Group 2: Images, Podcasts & Digital Video.

Images

Images may be two-dimensional, such as a photograph, screen display, and as well as a three-dimensional, such as a statue or hologram. They may be captured by optical devices–such as cameras, mirrors, lenses, telescopes, microscopes, etc. and natural objects and phenomena, such as thehuman eye or water surfaces. The word image is also used in the broader sense of any two-dimensional figure such as a map, a graph, a pie chart, or an abstract painting. In this wider sense, images can also be rendered manually, such as by drawing, painting, carving, rendered automatically by printing or computer graphicstechnology, or developed by a combination of methods, especially in a pseudo-photograph. A volatile image is one that exists only for a short period of time. This may be a reflection of an object by a mirror, a projection of a camera obscura, or a scene displayed on a cathode ray tube. A fixed image, also called a hard copy, is one that has been recorded on a material object, such as paper ortextile by photography or digital processes.

Source: Wikipedia

Tools for working with images:

Resizing photos: go to: Moba photo

Digital images online: Flickr: I have created an account and added a photo here.

I have also trialed and tested be funky creative website and have uploaded a photo and changed its appearance: like this:

Picture retrieved from here.


Extended entry on the images:

Affordances:

Teachers:

• Could be used as the hook for the class- powerful image, let the students brainstorm and begin associating the words with the picture.
• Can aid the written material and link the powerful images with it.
• Can aid visual learners.
• Can illustrate the events more effectively with images.
• Can illustrate the information and processes visually with diagrams and graphs.
• Can create powerpoints with images and zoom in the powerpoints by using Prezi.

Students:

•  Can create and share visual material through blogs and wikis.
• Can express themselves better with images that relate to what is being asked in some assignments by using graphs, mindmaps, photographs and so on.
• Can add personal, family photos to share information about themselves.

Positives-

• Provides variety, breaks up the written text and makes it more interesting and meaningful.
• Images can say many words, let students describe the image in descriptive words in English classes.
• Can make the Blogs, wikis more personal by adding own photos or the things that the students like.

Negatives-

• It is risky and dangerous to upload personal pictures and information, there are many cyber bullies and others that are willing to abuse the internet and do the wrong thing.
• It is important to  know what you can and can't share with the world and be aware that attribution applies and that some pictures need permission for the usage and the distribution.

Applications:

• Can be used at home and in the classroom. Powerful power point presentations with images.
• In German classes, the countries profile and states can be presented visually, foods, culture and other German-related images supplied to the class. In English, persuasive text can have images to go with it, advertisment, students describing a topic in anything, will be able to add images to it. Images can also be used to make a movie with a movie maker.

Digital audio recordings: see Experience with Voki  here.

What is a digital audio and a podcast?

A podcast:

A podcast is simply a sound file. But it is a sound file that is shared with others, usually by subscription. Clearly, podcasts can be accessed online, created by others across the web. They can be accessed online as files that you create for your students. But importantly, they are also files that your students create and share by uploading online.

In its simplest form, it is a recording of student performance or speech that is saved on a computer. This recording can be done direct to computer, or using a device such as a portable voice recorder or MP3 player. These recordings can be used in their own right, or can be used to provide a sound track on a movie, or embedded in PowerPoint.

In the next step up, audio recordings can be uploaded online. They can be uploaded to wikispaces, but unfortunately not into your blog. However, you can link from your blog to your wiki. The wiki will embed your voice recording into a player so it streams from your wiki page. Recordings can either be downloaded or streamed.

Digital audio can be embedded into the wiki space but not the blog, however the students can link the wiki site to their blog.

This is an example of the podcast.


http://classicpoetryaloud.podomatic.com/

The podomatic website could be used for recording German and then using it in the classroom.

I have accessed the Podomatic and have had a look at Classic poetry aloud , since I am studying to be an English teacher, this poetry podcast is brilliant and there are many poems by many different poets which are currently being studied at high schools.

The only downfall is that if the podcast is quite popular and highly used, the donations will have to be made for the podcast to be accessed for example on the i Tunes, if the podcast is accessed online, there is no problem. I have embedded the 'Anthem for doomed youth' by Alfred Owen, which i remember i had to do on my practical as one of the war poems.

Digital videos:

According to a research study by Kearney & Shuck (2006), digital video has a range of common usages in schools, in particular for communication, observation and analysis, and reflection. As a communication tool, digital video facilitates students' communication of messages, ideas or information. Digital video is also used as an observation and analysis tool, enhancing students' observations of phenomena, experiments or performances. Finally, it is used as a reflection tool to support student reflections on their own learning.
here
Outcomes of student video production include affective, meta cognitive, higher order thinking, communication and presentation, literacy, organisational and teamwork and movie making skill development.

Whilst digital video is a sound support of student capacity, and outcomes described (taken from Kearney and Shuck), caution is urged in ensuring that conceptual development related to curriculum outcomes is maintained as a core focus.

Digital video can be created using digital video cameras, however can also be made using still photographs, audio overlay, and/or the inclusion of video.


Common tools for the simple creation of digital video include Windows MovieMaker (on all Windows PCs) and iMovie (on all Apples), both included with the operating systems commonly installed on computers. Making movies is accessible to all, and even early childhood students are capable of combining their voice recordings and images into a movie.

Digital Tools group 1- Blogs-Wikis-Websites

Digital Tools  group 1- Blogs - Wikis- Websites

What is a blog?

          A blog (a contraction of the term "Web log") is a Web site, usually maintained by an individual, with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order. "Blog" can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog. Many blogs provide commentary or news on a particular subject; others function as more personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, Web pages, and other media related to its topic. The ability for readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of many blogs. Most blogs are primarily textual, although some focus on art, photographs, sketches, videos, music, audio, which are part of a wider network of social media

Source: wikipedia

Blogs:

I have started E-learning course and one of the first things we had to do was to set up our own blog, which currently looks like it does underneath but more information will be added soon!

          ICT's  and blogs are powerful tools for teachers and students.  ICT( Information and Communications Technoogy) is the name given to any digital device. This includes but is not limited to computers and the affordances of the internet, including a range of read-write tools. Scanners , hand-held devices, mobile phones, cameras, digital voice recorders, iPods, MP3 players, GPS devices and digital microscopes are all ICT. ( Moodle, 2012). ICT's provide the students with a variety and also interesting resources can be incorporated together with learning context and the curriculum, it is important to present information which will make students use higher order thinking skills and scaffolding.

Blogger tour -  Will describe more about the blogs and will take you through the different information on blogs.

Blog analyzer- http://www.webseoanalytics.com/free/seo-tools/blog-analyzer.php. This website analyses your blog. I have analysed mine and here is some of the results: It is quite interesting and it explains what the domains mean after you analyse your blog.

Swot analysis of blogs an enterprise perspective from enterprisezweinull

Extended Exploration of a blog:

Affordances:

For teachers: Using edublogs for example.

• The possibility to share materials, news, downloads, links and more with the students daily.
• Facilitate online discussions and collaboration.
• Create a class publication that students can easily publish to and you can easily edit.
• Replace your newsletter and stay in touch with parents about what is going in class.
• Get your students blogging so that they can share their work and thoughts.
• Share your lesson plans.

For students:

• Sharing the materials with everyone and finding the 'voice'.
• Encourages the enthusiasm for writing and creating.
• Blogs can be easily edited and updated by the author of the blog
• Other students and friends can comment on the blog pages created by others.
• Blogs can be used for scaffolding and as a life- long learning tool.
• The written blogs can be viewed by many and it provides the students with the feeling of connectedness.

Resource: Educational Blogging.
http://supportblogging.com/Educational+Blogging

Adding things to the blog:
With blogs you can add an image, third party such as flickr can be used aswel for uploading the edited photos to your blog. Adding videos is also posible. Blogger accepts AVI, MPEG, Quicktime, Real and Windows files and the video must be less than 100 MB in size. 

Can't add:
Audio files or powerpoints or files and Microsoft Word documents. Wiki would have to be used for that.

Positives-  Easy to use, step by step instructions, can be accesssed at the Blogger Tour. Interesting and encourages creativity, can change layout, font, make it personal. Can be timelined and the information can be organized and sorted out. Automatically saves while you typing. Can have drafts and publish whenever the full paper is ready. It is fun. Can keep the blog private.

Negatives- Can be slow when typing at times, gets overloaded, everyone can see the material if it is not made private, material could be criticised, could create issues in the classroom, some students might not want to publish their thoughts and ideas. Some students might not have access to the computer or the internet at home. When typing, the capital letters don't automatically apply, like in word documents, so the typing can be a bit slower.

Applications- Could be used weekly, to reflect on the learnt material, mainly use it at school and at the computer rooms, unless all the students have the access to the computer at home. Homework could be supplied, diaries could be kept for poetry for example. Blogs could be used to scaffold the information and to access the weekly information and activities, added by the teacher.

Possible usage of blogs in German and English classes: some ideas.

German: ideas.

Students can create a German blog, browse pictures relating to Germany, describe the pictures, write in German. Upload German You-tube videos, German songs. Do a presentation and share it with the class, allow other students to comment on each other's blogs.

Blogging very much supports learning theories of Social Constructivism and Connectivism:  

What is a wiki?

My wiki can be accessed here http://www.wikispaces.com/user/my/henny1987.
         A wiki is an online space where users and guests can edit, modify, add, remove information with intuitive editing tools. It could be compared to a never-ending, paginated sheet of online butchers paper. Working in a wiki requires rules and etiquette. Especially given that one student is able to remove, overwrite or edit the work of another. Whilst the previous work can be easily recovered using the history function of the wiki, it is inconvenient and poor etiquette unless it is an agreed upon activity. The history function can be very useful to identify the contribution of each student to the blog, authoring dates, and progress of students.

One drawback of wikis is that they cannot accommodate multiple, concurrent authors. If two or more people are editing a wiki at one time, only the work of one will be saved. If concurrent editing is the best way to work, spaces such as Google Docs are more suitable, in fact are ideal.

Wiki would be great for the class of students, where I could provide the topic and us the De Bono's hats for different perspectives. Wiki is effective because the whole class can access and contribute to the teacher-guided activity. Commnets and posts can be left in order to reflect and contribute to the opinions and the learning. Wiki reflection can be found on my blog here

What is a website?

          How does a website, or online space work? In the "good old days", you had to be a web author to create a coded web page. It is still strongly recommended that you become familiar with snippets of code because it allows you to manipulate and customise your pages.
These days, most online spaces have what is called a WYSIWYG editor - "what you see is what you get". It is much like Word, or PowerPoint. You put up your content, and the program does the coding for you.so ANYONE can be a web author. Some programs like Weebly make it even easier by allowing you to insert place-holders, into which you add your own content.

What makes a website fantastic is that you can upload only one of everything in a range of spaces custom built for each type of artefact. For instance, SlideShare is for Powerpoints, Flickr is for images (and video), of course YouTube is definitely for videos. And in your website, you are able to embed code, which embeds the artefact into your webpage. This is how I added the YouTubes to this page. Furthermore, you are able to link from one page to another using Linking, which allows you to move up and down, side to side across the web at will.
One VERY IMPORTANT thing to remember is that a website can draw together artefacts that are held in the WEB. You cannot copy and paste images etc into a web page when you are creating it. You will need to upload and embed it.

Weebly:

I have created an acount with Weebly and it seems to be very easy to operate. The idea of dragging pragraphs, photos, audio files and many other things seem easy and fun.  I haven't actually had enough time to add things to that website but I am planning to create a website in the future for the students, where I could add some things and the students could check it on regular basis, maybe for revision or extra learning material.