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Artisan Cam’s Picture Book Maker
Arisan Cam’s Picture Book Maker
Whilst it is not perfect, you can, quite quickly, create some little gems.
Choose your characters, some backgrounds, objects and artefacts, then get composing your tale over multiple pages. This can help break down simple stories in to distinct sections, perhaps as a plan for a more extended tales
Younger children could find the Picture Book Maker a great stimulus for planning, but also for presenting the end results of their writing.
American School of Bombay – Parenting Hi Tech Children
Our time in Mumbai, at The American School of Bombay, for #ASBUnplugged, has really been enhanced by the chance to travel, and explore, alongside Dr. Larry Rosen, an expert in the psychology of technology.
So it was a pleasure to start today with Larry, and parents from the school, looking at how to understand, a bit more, the lives of the iGeneration, Generation C and beyond, in a session called “Parenting Hi Tech Children and Teens“. Larry introduced us to recent generations: baby boomers, generation x (1965-79), net generation, which started in 1980 when future internet users were born.
Right behind the net generation is the “iGeneration” with their accessibility to devices with an “i” – ipod, iphone, itouch, ieverything – plus these children’s thirst for any new mobile technology.
Generation-C are uber-connected: have never known a world without the internet or on-demand access to content, are accustomed to immediate feedback and customization. – music, tv shows, etc. are customized for them. They have a desire for immediacy, are adept at multitasking, able and comfortable in creating and publishing content immediately and widely online, and have “always on” technology, 24×7
Larry says: “Little research has been done on these preschool and elementary school-aged children, but our interviews with parents of more than 2,000 of them show that they are embracing technology and media much earlier than their older brothers and sisters. In fact, these children are getting their first taste of personal technology often before they can even sit up without assistance. To put it simply, children have grown up in an environment where technology is everywhere and much of it is invisible.
Most children and adolescents have grown up with the largest storehouse of information in history – the internet – and from an early age they learned to play online games, send e-mail to grandma and grandpa, and watch videos. As they got older, they learned to Google anything they wanted to know, mapquest directions, go to wikipedia for school reports, and use dictionary.com for definitions. Many have never used a card catalogue, a “real” encyclopedia, or Webster’s dictionary. Some have never set foot in a library other than as a place to study after school. To children and teenagers, the internet has always been just a click away and, as you will see from the data we have collected over the years, they use it for a variety of purposes that are beyond the scope of anything imagined just a decade ago”.
Generations differ in media use, multitasking skills, communication, socialization, content creation, learning styles, work values and even core values.
One out of every 4.5 mins is on Facebook. Baby boomers are the fastest growing Facebook users. Top teen activity is social networking. Life is moving faster than ever …particularly for these younger generations. There are many new technologies for a new generation. All of these have come along since 2000: ipod, •iphone,•wii •myspace •facebook •youtube •twitter •flash drives •xbox •satellite radio •napster •firefox
What are the different generations doing with their media? The Generation-C ingest a daily diet of media and technology. They can operate in “techno-cocoons” where 8 out of 10 teens “can’t imagine a day without technology.”
They are supreme multitaskers and they use different media when multitasking. Why do they multitask so much? Because they can! With all the new technologies it is difficult for them not to multitask. Cell phones, ipods, im, text messaging, internet browsers, dvrs, pip-tv, skype, myspace, facebook …
13-to 17-year olds make and receive 191 phone calls per month. 13-to 17-year-old send and receive an average of 2,899texts per month and 42% of teens say they can text blindfolded.
Larry stated that multitasking is not a reality, it is actually ‘task switching’ and to consider ‘meta-cognition’, the thinking about how their brain works is useful. To support ‘focused attention’, Larry described ‘technology breaks ‘– a strategy that can be used by teachers in their classes, “Ok, take your cell phones out, ‘check in’ for 1 minute, now put them on silent and facedown, now work for 15 minutes.”
‘Tech Breaks’ can help children do better at school because they can concentrate on the tasks in hand and not be distracted by the ‘internal distractions’ that access to smart phones create.
The brain is internally distracting itself because ‘other stuff’ is going on – internal distractors. To let the children know that ‘in 15 mins I will let you use it ‘ – this removes the internal distractions, reassures them that they will get to check all the important things very soon. This is a strategy that parents can use – Tech Break.
It made a lot of sense and we related to it too. (Hence why this blog has taken time to get on line!)
Our brains have different needs. How we think, how your brain works, what is important to your brain, the brains of the children in the classroom, have a huge effect on the way we operate.
Understanding that the children in a class are more than likely to be more familiar and comfortable with the art of texting than the art of face-to-face communication, they would more easily text than make a phone call.
Larry focused in on Facebook and explored how one of its features is the fact that is enables people to rehearse and practise in the virtual and an interesting that Facebook brings about ‘online empathy’, a means to share, ‘empathic’ can happen through txt, through the virtual world. More online empathy you show, the more social support you feel. Learn how to do a better job at being empathic in the real world.
Kids are rehearsing life through these virtual worlds. The boys now spend more time talking to girls on Facebook, tend to spend more time talking to girls for real, now, a more scary idea for boys maybe 30 years ago.
Larry discussed the more worrying sides of these virtual environments and we could conclude that social networks are good and potentially bad.
Larry shared some ways to be positive and work with children to develop ground rules and guidelines.
Does all this electronic communication affect their written communication? Yes and no. They use more “textisms”, write better informal essays, but worse formal letters.
They share thoughts/opinions (blogs/posts), and enjoy creating music, developing videos which they upload to youtube, publishing/posting photos, podcasting, building/maintaining websites
“This is an extremely important issue in understanding how best to parent and educate our youth. Communication is a key element in their daily lives. Several other trends are obvious and noteworthy. Music becomes increasingly important as children move into adolescence, as does text messaging. Interestingly, watching television appears to be more popular among the younger teens than any other group as is video game playing.
Another issue concerning the proliferation of media in our children’s lives concerns where they actually use their media. Universally, psychologists and educators caution against allowing young children to ensconce themselves in bedroom “techno cocoons” for a variety of reasons including parental monitoring and safety. However, my most recent studies of more than 1,300 parents of children and teens between the ages of 6 months and 18 years indicates that many younger children are indeed owning and using technology behind closed bedroom doors. “there is a persistent gap between how today’s digital natives learn in schools and how they work and interact outside of school — a trend that underscores the need for districts to keep pace with technological advances and adapt to students’ learning needs.”
Larry looked at Alvin Toffler’s wave model which explains generational upheaval. The waves broadly define how different technologies have been introduced and “accepted” over the years. Larry said that if you were to plot these waves on a timeline, the points of intersection mean areas of social unrest.
The first few waves were slow in their progress for example, the first , the agricultural period lasted 3,000 years; the second, the industrial 300 years; the 3rd the introduction of the computer took 30 years. We are still close to, and experiencing a few developing, concurrent phases at the moment: the information communication and biotech phases.
The penetration rate of technology, the number of years it takes to achieve 50 million users, is getting faster. Radio – 38 years telephone – 20 years tv – 13 years cell phones – 12 years cable – 10 years internet – 5 years ipod – 3 years facebook – 2 years
New technology is, in some ways, making our lives more difficult because we are continually having to learn more and more . . . . And faster and faster. And sometimes it just doesn’t make sense. Young adults seem like they are aliens …particularly when they communicate. LOL Some times, this is deliberate: POS (Parent over shoulder)
In a school and home learning situation careful use of technology keeps students engaged in a personal education experience, helps in issues with boredom. Teachers need to go beyond “stand-and-deliver” or (digital) “Chalk and talk” to capture and keep children’s attention.
It was a pleasure to experience Larry’s session; he doesn’t just talk about his topic, he illustrates it, relates to it personally, rationalizes it, and all of this done with a superb sense of humor and pace. Most definitely someone for those looking for a valuable, thought provoking, informative and challenging speaker.
Many Eyes – Data Visualised
Many Eyes is a great collection of visualisations of data, and a superb tool to create your own.
Finding the right way view your data is as much an art as a science. The visualizations provided on Many Eyes range from the ordinary to the experimental. The ability to create interactive visualizations from any of the data sets on the site, means it is possible to explore how, the way you portray data, can determine how we perceive, and analyse, that data. (93.74% of what you’ve just read, is made up. The other 46% is accurate).
Sourcebits AR Taj Mahal (& Scimorph)
Sourcebits AR toy gives you the chance to hold The Taj Mahal in the palm of your hand.
Move it, turn it, rotate it and explore.
If you would like to try some more AR experiences, try Scimorph, as we wrote about in this post, to investigate different scientific aspects.
Extensions… ex tension
A few times recently at conferences or on training days we’ve referred to ways of making an internet search more accurate and on target. The big one is to Banish tension by using extensions.
One of the best ways to search for a file is to add the file extension, or file type, you are looking for. All file extensions are preceded by a dot (or full stop) and tell the computer which program or programs are to be used to open that kind of file.
This can be useful when looking up movie files, images, sounds, and many other formats.
For example, if you are doing your science planning and are about to spend hours making a PowerPoint presentation about the parts of a plant, save your time. Search for some inspiration, and maybe even a starter for ten.
Try a search for “parts of a plant” and you will come up with hundreds of results. Maybe even millions.
However, now add “.ppt” (one of the file extensions for PowerPoint) and you will find many, and, some of them, very good, presentations about plants and their anatomy. Also use “.pps”
Below are just some of the main “file extension” labels you might find useful in narrowing down a search.
If you are looking for an audio clip, try the name you want (e.g. dog barking, or the name of a TV theme) and one of these extension.
For film, use one of the extensions below:
Searching for .doc files could mean you don’t have to write that policy on your own. Find pictures easily too:
Flash files e.g. whiteboard activities, and pdfs for different forms of document.
There are many other file extensions, but these might get you going to begin with. Do let us know of any obvious (or less obvious) ones we’ve missed. May this save you some time and make searching more fruitful. You’ll need to consider copyright and fair use but…
Happy hunting!
Soundation
Now THIS is something worth a massive exploration: Soundation is a most impressive online digital music machine that has huge potential.
The FREE version allows a lot (except you can’t save or mix down your end results).
This post will not be a detailed one as you neeeeeeeeed to go off and play.
The Night Zookeeper
The Night Zookeeper is an interesting, cross curricular, project that helps children to get creative with (& without) computers & invent their own magical animals to live inside a virtual zoo. A fun & enjoyable reason to write.
Children write descriptive, adventure stories featuring their creations alongside the official animals that exist within the original story, which is available in audio format at www.nightzookeeper.com
The team recently visited Moorside Primary School, Manchester, to deliver their literacy, art and ICT based project. The students there had already displayed their excitement and interest in the story on their blog prior to the visit. Have a read HERE.
The day began by video chatting with the night zookeeper, which gave the children the opportunity to ask direct questions to the lead character in the story.
“Are you sometimes frightened in the Night Zoo?”
“Well not with my trusty Golden Torch.”
“How many animals are in your zoo?”
“There are magical animals beyond count!”
“What is your favourite animal?
“Tough question, but probably the Time Travelling Elephant”
The children listened to more of the Night Zookeeper story performed by the author himself. Listening to these stories and viewing exclusive artwork helped to fuel their imaginations further as they began to envisage new animals living inside of the Night Zoo. They then collaborated on ideas that they would eventually use to build up a profile; giving their animal character and personality. This video displays children creating their animals and talking through their ideas: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHwfe91fwMU
One fantastic element of the Night Zookeeper; and one that teachers get really excited about is the freedom it allows for self expression. The students aren’t held back by any preconceived ideas, they are allowed to let their imaginations roam free and therefore produce some incredible work. This blog post from Olivia, a year 4 student; showcases some of the descriptive writing children have been doing as a result of the Night Zookeeper project.
Towards the end of the visit children were encouraged to write descriptive statements about their own creations. They shared vocabulary before this exercise by brainstorming adjectives to bring their characters to life. These videos are great examples of the writing that was produced:
Children’s imagination and creativity is fired by a delightful story of the night time escapades of some animals in a remarkable zoo. By designing and drawing their own creatures and sharing them online they begin to build a back story to their beings.
They then develop a story around these animals, with support from story structures, and the ability to invite other children to help them write. Others can be invited to give evaluation points to the ideas they enjoy. Writing for a meaningful purpose, with feedback from those who matter.
Parents can become involved in the tales that develop about these animals, with the help of supporting story structures.
The class teacher and ICT coordinator Jackie Powell said:
“The project has made a real difference to the children’s writing. They are using description in a much more effective way and their writing technique has improved. I have seen evidence of the Night Zookeeper ‘style’ coming through in the writing they have done since. There has been a transition from story writing to story-telling, they seem more aware of the fact that they are writing to give pleasure to someone else.”
Dear Esther
A deserted island…a lost man…memories of a fatal crash…a book written by a dying explorer.”
Two years in the making, the highly anticipated Indie remake of the cult mod of Half Life 2, Dear Esther arrives.
Dear Esther immerses you in a stunningly realised world, a remote and desolate, isolated, island somewhere in the outer Hebrides.
Dark & emotionally unsettling, but devoid of some of the elements associated with some computer games, such as aggression, or interactive combat, we are left to explore.
There are no overt objectives, enemies, puzzles, and, apart from a fleeting glimpse of someone in the distance, and the back story, and intrigue, created by the narrative, there are no characters.
We are alone… or are we?
Much in the same vein as Epic Citadel, but in a far more developed and mature setting, there is more to observe than interact with. In the words of Mathias Poulsen, “Limited interactivity sharpens focus on the beautiful, dark environment”.
Dear Esther could be seen to change the language of normal game play. We explore the island accompanied only by seagulls, the narrative and a superb, haunting sound track. By combining observations, we may work out what has happened.
The boundaries of exploration are very cleverly set, much as with the Myst series, where a rock, river or drop into an abyss, set natural limitations that don’t leave you frustrated. In fact, the journey is a linear one, without you realising you are being led in a certain direction.
This game, whilst not free, does allow a lot of freedom. You will need to investigate to decide the best audience but the potential for real development of plot, narrative and a huge amount beyond that, means you will hear of this island, & its virtual inhabitants, a lot more.
Digital Tattoo
With Digital Tattoo you can explore your digital identity. Just like a tattoo, your digital reputation is an expression of yourself. it is formed and added to by you and others over time. Want to learn more about yours?
Search yourself. Use pipl.com to find out what comes up about you. Try spezify or Personas for a visual representation of your identity or (more importantly) how the internet sees you.
Your Digital Dossier demonstrates how identity is formed online. Be Findable is an example of how your online identity can help you. All of this could be very useful when investigating online presence with students or colleagues.
