Literacy Resources

As an authority we are taking part in an animation and poetry project entitled Persistence of Vision.  Through a group of schools, consultants, animators and academic mentors we are working together to create a framework of progression in animation that can be used by all primary schools.

Today was our first day and was really about the basics of creating an animation with Oscar Stringer.  We used I Can Animate software and Hue webcams.

One of the issues that we are exploring is what impact does watching animations have on children’s own animations.  We watched Laughing Moon from the BFI Starting Stories and Love on the Wing from Story Shorts 2. These two animations were chosen becuase of the links that they had to the poetry units in Yr 2 – Patterns on the Page (Laughing Moon) and the use of imagery in Yrs5 and 6 (Love on the Wing).

Learning and Teaching Scotland has some interesting ideas for creating animations in powerpoint that follow on from Laughing Moon.  And this idea using sticky post-its is fantastic for playing around with patterns!  This video, Trade Tatoo, from the GPO film unit is yet another great way of using patterns.

Below are the animations created by the teachers working in pairs.

Next session we will work on sound.

This has to be one of the best resources that I have come across recently. Many thanks to Tim Brook for sharing on his blog Magic Lantern Movies.   A widget that allows others to upload film clips and then remix all the clips.  This would be a great activity for pupils to do over the holidays, bearing in mind e-safety issues.  Instead of writing the ever present ‘What I did in the Summer Holidays’ on the first day back, the class could make a video of what they did. Let’s have a go!  Upload a short video clip of somewhere that you visited or have visited previously during the summer and then edit and remix the clips. Want one of these yourself?  Then go to Kaltura Open Source Video and sign up. Linked posts: What else can I have on my blog?

Xtranormal haspopped up in bookmarks and blogs for a couple of weeks and I have finally got round to having a look at it and I love it!

Xtranormal is movie making with cartoon characters but what makes this site stand out is the way in which you create the movie.  First you type in a script and then to that script you add the details such as actions, expressions, camera angle for filming, background and sound.  There are a range of voices to choose from plus background music.

I originally sat down at my computer to think about creating a few podcasts for grammar and ended up creating this rather rushed film

What I particularly like about this site is the fact that you can remix other people’s film.

If this wonderful site will pass through your school filtering system it has a wide range of uses.  In literacy it could be used to write a speech thinking about the actions and what angle you should be filmed from when saying particular things.  It can obviously be used for playscripts and to rehearse persuasive discussions with two points of view.

It can also support the development of character in story writing.  Children can make a short film of the character speaking shwoing through actions and expressions how the character is feeling.  This can then be turned into writing which shows not tells.

Now to the work I should have been doing!

I was recently asked by @JeanetteMcLeod  what I thought about ebooks in the classroom and why  they weren’t being used.  A good question.

I think that there are several situations where e-books could be used in literacy: shared reading, guided reading and  independent reading; and across the curriculum for research.

We call books that are used in shared time in literacy Texts that Teach and they are used as models for children.  They are texts that have one or more of the following criteria: have powerful language, have something worth talking about and have a strong structure.  I have to say that of the ebooks I have seen there are none that fit into this category.  I would want to use ebooks in this part of a literacy session because I could show them through a data projector and everyone would be able to see the book clearly.

Children who are reading at level 3 and above (National Curriculum levels in the UK) could use ebooks for guided reading if the school has access to suitable hardware for the books to be read on.  Again, these books must be quality literature or non-fiction that are just good books no matter what format they are in and must include picture books not just novels.  For children reading below level 3 publishers of ebooks would have to get the book ‘Book Banded’ so that schools/teachers would know what level the book could be used at.  At these levels, for teaching purposes, children should not be problem-solving with more than 1 word in 10.  I suspect that we are years away from seeing this happen.  I have seen some phonically decodeable books in ebook format and as long as these were linked to phases in Letters and Sounds (phonics programme) they would be used by schools. Phonically decoadable books are however a very small percentage of books used in schools.

I think the biggest place for ebooks at the moment is in independent reading where things such as text to speech can be a great support.  But again here we need more than traditional tales and books that are out of copyright.  We need up to date quality texts that we would want to read no matter what format they are in.

I think that the move towards ebooks for the  reading curriculum has just started but we are long way away from ebooks being used regularly.

Do you have an ebook that you use with your class that is a quality text?  If so, I would love to know what it is.

I have to say a big thank you to @mtechman for sharing this resource but now we have digital poetry from Poemsthatgo.  This is poetry that is written especially for the digital age and only works digitally.

Poetry that Goes is kinetic poetry, i.e poetry that moves and stems from concrete poetry.  The site details how this poetry came to be and several of the forms offer great study for the primary classroom.

I particularly like the Figure 5 Media Series inspired by William Carlos William from the 2001 archives.  It offers a great model for responding creatively to a poem through text, image, video and links.

The inspirations section is fascinating and offers several ideas and resources.  Seedsigns is fascinating and is almost a phonics lesson (although we might sound out the p and the h together to make f as a digraph ), it make sfor an interesting discussion and reading of the words.  I also like the ABC game although I haven’t quite ‘got it’.

I had to work quite hard to understand some of the poetry, in fact to read the words with the speed at which they appeared, but this is a site well worth investigating and some of the poems are fantastic to use as models with the children.

Linked posts:

• Digital Fiction: examples and ideas for the classroom
• Would you rather read on screen or on paper?
  

I have to own up to using very few tools from the lesson activity toolkit in SMART notebook, so it was with interest that I read about an update for the lesson activity toolkit.

To access the update open up SMART notebook and then open the gallery.  At the side of the search box you will see a little spanner.  Click on that and then updates and finally lesson activity.

I particularly like the keyword pad and think that it has many uses in Literacy.  I have long been frustrated at how you had to deal with individual words or phrases if you wanted to isolate them to look at them in more detail. Well now I am not.  This means that text analysis is much easier.  To see an example of how this activity could be used, see the short video below. 

Using Keyword Pad from joy simpson on Vimeo.

Tagging posts is such an important part of blogging so day 12 of 20 days to better blogging is all about tags.

So many sites on the read/write web use tagging and I consider it to be an essential skill for the 21st Century.  One wonderful way to start children off thinking about tagging is to use an activity described by Beth Kanter on her blog.  Ask the children to think of three words that describe things that they are really interested in.  Write these on cards and then hold them up.  Walk round and find someone that has a tag that interests you and talk to them about it.  This helps to show that tagging is about connecting with people, sites, images or events who have the same interests as you.  They also help to organise information and to retrieve information.

Tagging is about keywords and this requires children to be able to summarise what they want to tag.  If too many or too few tags are used, neither is helpful.  You could start with tagging images that you have taken on school trips or of events happening in school.  The question is what key words would people use if they wanted to connect with this image?  How many can you come up with?  What about choosing a special tag that is only for that event.  This is the # tag equivalent on twitter and is the way we find blog posts and photos of events on flickr.

People are still too stiff and rigid with their tagging technique. Loosen up. You don’t have to find the “right category” to put something into, that is part of the tyranny and inflexibility of a classification scheme that we’re trying to get away from. Don’t tell me what it is, the “truth” of it as it were. Tell my why it matters.

Unfortunately the source for this quote is no longer available but it comes from whump.com

Have a series of small cards available in the classroom and each day designate an object to tag with whatever words the children feel appropriate.

By allowing children to generate tags for objects we are tapping into the internal representations of knowledge that they use to associate with that object.  We can also work in the reverse.  What image do you think goes with the tags: – knit, tag, tagged, crocheted, knitting, streetart, guerilla art, urban, graffiti and public art?  And here is the image that had these tags.

Next time you read a blog with children go first of all to the tags and use them to get an overview of what the blog is all about. Discuss why some words are bigger than others or are emboldened.  This train of thought may take you down the route of Wordle.

Your challenge is to introduce children to the art of tagging and for them to start tagging their posts.

Image teaching tagging by angshah

I was asked earlier this week what my favourite online collaborative tool was and although I did suggest one, I didn’t really want to miss some others out.  So here are my top 5:

1. Wikis - these are, I think, the most flexible tool of all.  They can  be used just for text but are best when images, video and podcasts are included.  Think wikipedia and then try out that model with your class.  Can you produce a page about a river in your area, an event that is happening, a period of history being studied, a story?
2. Etherpad – this is a great tool for producing text that a group have collaborated on.  Etherpad will allow upto 8 people on at any one time.  Each person selects a colour so that writing can be identified.
3. Voicethread – here images are put together and then comments can be recorded through speech or text.  There is an education section that schools and classrooms can sign up for.  Voicethread 4 Education is a fantastic wiki that shares how teachers have used Voicethread with examples as is Voice Thread Resources and Ideas.
4. Blogs – although there is only one author usually on a blog, the collaboration here takes place between the writer and the readers of the blog.  The comments boxes are used to continue a discussion that the blogger has started.  Fantastic tools for developing children’s voice and allowing them to write about their own interests.
5. Mind-mapping – I have been a fan of mind-mapping for some time and there are now online tools that allow you to map collaboratively.  MindMeister is currently my favourite one.  This tool allows you to invite others to collaborate on the mind-map and is so simple to use.  I use the free basic version but there is an academic version at a much reduced rate.  Please feel free to collaborate with me on the mind-map I am creating for a short talk on why children should blog.

The 2009 Horizon Reort: The K12 Edition discusses the reasons why collaboration is so important and also mentions some tools that have proved to be useful and reports about their use.  Well worth reading.

Linked posts: Collaborative Writing with Children and Collaborative Writing

This is the second post in a short series about collaborative writing.  It was written collaboratively using Etherpad at http://etherpad.com/XHq0OmeA0o .

Collaborative writing is a new skill for many children.   Letting go of your own writing and allowing others to adapt/change/edit it can be an uncomfortable feeling.

So what can we do?

@AngelaStockman  suggests several ways of collaborating on writing. “Sometimes, we’ll remix three word videos or six word memoirs. I think having the examples there helps at first, but once kids have had experience with this, they are more confident blazing their own trail. I’ve also watched teachers start kids off small on a wikispace and then invite them to continue shaping the piece.”

1. Give children collaborative writing experiences offline.  Angela’s idea for this is great because it removes ownership of the writing by cutting up and mixing around the words/phrases being used.
2. @markw29 suggests starting in very small collaborative groups, gradually adding more collaborators over time so that children become used to this way of working.  Children often work in pairs so this would be a good starting point.
3. Allow time for children to actually play with the collaborative tool being used and to get used to what can be done on it.
4. Teach about responsibility when working collaboratively.
5. Try cumulative activities where collaborators add an idea, sentence, line, paragraph one after another.  This means that previous writing is not changed but collaborators must consider cohesion and style to maintain the flow.  Flicktion on Flickr is a great example of this.  If this doesn’t get through the school filter you can still borrow the idea and not use Flickr for it.
6. @scottfisher74 took the opportunity to address preparation for SATs creatively and gave his class a writing starter that they then went and collaborated on an answer.  The children were in friendship groups.  A good way to group for a first go.
7. Create the bare bones of a text and ask collaborative groups to improve it.
8. Here is a great idea from  Diplomacy in Action for a collaborative reflection after working on a piece of writing.  In the group each child is assigned a letter A, B, C etc.  A briefly describes how their participation has affected the group’s work.  2-3 mins and no questions permitted.  B either asks A a probing question or paraphrases them.  B then describes how their particpation affected the group’s work and so on round the group.  This would be a real challenge but would start to get to the heart of effective collaboration.
9. Story MashUp offers an interesting model for collaborative writing – here the collaboration is between reader and writer.  I do like this idea.
10. What ideas do you have?  Please share them.

Linked posts:  Collaborative Writing, Using Etherpad in the Classroom, Kent ICT (@mbarrow)has a great page of ideas created collaboratively and from Etherpad itself more ideas.

Written by  @AngelStockman, @markw29, @scottfisher74 and Sara, Jenna and Mo who are trainee secondary English teachers and @joysimpson

Update: a great post about reasons for writing collaboratively

Image recaptioned from lolcats

 The title of this image is comments hell!  Day 8 of 20 days to better blogging is all about showing children how to engage with commenting on blogs in a way that goes beyond comment hell.  These are the comment equivalents of closed questions.  It is almost impossible to follow on and keep the converstaion going.

Commenting is one of the most important parts of blogging – be it as a reader or writer.  They are about continuing discussion which the blogger or another commenter has started. 

This process needs modelling with children so that they understand some of the processes that we go through when deciding what to write.  I think there are several types of comment and very often they will be determined by the post. 

• Quite often a post will end with a question.  If readers respond you get an extended post.
• Sometimes it will end in a manner that works with the rest of the post
• sometimes it is just a social occasion – see the number of comments on each post here!  You do have to learn to speak the language first.

Your task today is to find a blog that the children are interested in and, together with them, compose and submit a comment. 

Image by P!0