Week 5

This week we looked at wordle, Tagcrowd and various other tools that can animate pictures or you can make vidoes with.

I have had a look at glogster and will probably choose a tool like blabber working with early years, this could be in one picture animated with blabber using a voice recorder to record something from a student about the picture. This is great for Early Phase as it can be used to show parents of learning experiences and to go in portfolios. I was actually surprised how much you there was on these digital tools and how interactive Early Phase students could be in setting them up.

Wordle can be a great way to play and dislplay text you can choose the layout and colours to highlight certain words

http://www.wordle.net/create

Digi Books

We also looked at setting up a digi book from Windows Excel another new tool that I never thought could be used other than for databases. It works by adding in a picture then typing text on a sheet. If you then choose the next sheet do the same thing and so on creating an electronic type of book. To add voice to it you actually then just press the tab talking heads and it reads the text albeit in a funny voice but you can also change this to sound different. Voila you have a digi book created with your students.

I have tried this for my own use with my children by adding a picture of them and then adding text (sight words from school) to create short sentences. It was a hit and enjoyed by all.