Tool #5: Producing with Web 2.0 Tools

Animoto is fun, and some students pick up on how to use this pretty quick, others get bogged down in the choices of music, picture order and the like. Here is one that I made to introduce temperature and the different kinds of thermometers that my students might be able to locate around their own house.

 
Make your own slide show at Animoto.

Here is a different one that I made when working on a project for a class where Dr. Bishop was my teacher. I am sorry that I was only able to have him for one of my graduate classes before he retired.  He is missed!  This was designed for a fifth grade class that might be beginning their unit of study on the Revolutionary War.  It went along with a Wiki that had different resources that teachers could use, and there were places where students could respond about their learning.  (Oh, and I made the opening smiley face guy at BigHugeLabs).



Make your own slide show at Animoto.

I was familiar with many of the sites listed...we have used BigHugeLabs for trading cards and magazine covers.  This past year we made trading cards for government leaders, and I think that helped some students get a better understanding of the different between mayor, governor, and president, which is very abstract and confusing to young minds.  Just be careful to NOT click on the back arrow to edit your work on that site...you'll lose everything you have typed in.  One thing that was helpful in that area was to have the students type their info in a google doc, then they would copy/paste the info when they got to BHL.  Saved a lot of tears in doing it that way!  (hattip:  Amy Markham!)

I am getting to like Prezi.  If you are working on a presentation that doesn't have to be linear, this is a lot of fun.  In Library Land, where I am spending a lot of my "free" time, this is fun to set up for booktalks, or set up examples of different genres.  For a lesson in 2nd grade, you could make one with different book covers or titles, and click on each one to discuss if it is non-fiction or fiction, locate author names as well as illustrators.  Makes it a little more engaging because the student can take charge of the order of the lesson.  It is possible to "assign" the order that things are shown in a prezi.  I made a how-to prezi for a faculty staff development back in January, and I needed it to play in a certain order.  Click here to go to that prezi.

So, I wanted to find something new for this tool.  I had a great time playing with the comix site.  This is great for my 2nd graders.  They are just getting into the humor of comics, and one of the spelling menu choices every now and then is to make a comic using their spelling words.  The downside of this is that they can't save their work, they need to complete it in one sitting.  This might be handled through having them "pre-type" their speech bubbles in a document, then they can copy paste it into the comix, which will help them get through the process a little easier.  They can also create one from home, then email me the link as well.  Another downer, we can't use ipads to do these since it requires flash.  Maybe that will be fixed in the near future.
Here is the one that I made---my friends and family are going to be just as glad for me to finish grad school as I am.  I KNOW they have to be tired of hearing me complain.  I don't mean to--much.  I've never been good at finishing long term projects, and this master's degree thing is about to send me over the edge!!