Final Reflections

Since the creation of our blog we have travelled a long journey in the world of the information and communication technologies through the discovery of some fantastic tools.

We started creating a blog (Blogger) in which we upploaded everything we did during this course. The second step was creating an avatar to identify ourselves using, in my case, the App Bitmoji.

After that, we discovered how to protect our work and how to include other´s works in ours respecting the property license (Creative Common License). This was a great discovering because I didn't used to take it into account in academic tasks before this course.

Then, we learnt how to create some information organizers using a wide range of tools to make maindmaps, infographics, slideshow presentations.We also learnt how to create a comic strip using online generators. I think this was the most important part of our learning with regard to the educational purposes in that knowing tools to display content in different ways is extremely important for teachers,

Finally, the last sessions of this course were focused on the creation of audivisual elements. First, by learning how to create video recordings and uplading them to a host server (Podcasts) and then, discovering how to create and edit videorecordings. I really enjoyed this part, especially the creation of the stopmotion video that I chose to do.

I finish this course feeling that I have learnt a lot about applications and tools that can be used in classrooms. I really liked the activities chosen to be carried out during this course. Although I would have rather preferred not to upload everything to the social media. Perhaps, for the next years it would be a good idea to use a social platform just for the students of the course.

Finally, I attach here my video presentation about my journey through this course.

My flipgrid

Hello everyone!

Today I am going to tell you my experience sharing a story using the ICT tool Flipgrid. It is an app that allows you to record a video and share it with a comunity (The world is my audience) . In my opinion is not a good tool, because took me several attemps before I could get a proper video. The app have a lot of errors, such as, stucks, random cuts of the video, conection errors and the unability to go back. The only good thing I could mention is that all the videos uploaded are in the same place so you can see what other people have done. 

 On another hand, apart form the creation of the video, to be part of an educational collaborative project worldwid is a great experience, because you can see the experiences of other teachers and share yours. 

Finally, although I am not a social media person since I only have Facebook and I hardly use it, I find it a very interesting tool to share knowledge and opinions.

This is my video, I hope you like it:

Stop Motion video

Hello students! Today we will learn how to create a stop motion video.

Stop motion is an animation technique that consists of simulating the movement of static objects by using a series of consecutive still images.

In the fourth course, we are now studying the simple machines, specifically the lever, the pulley and the inclined plane.In groups, you have to choose a simple machine and create a video in stop motion and explain to your classmates how it works for the Natural Science subject.

We have already made the storyboard that will help to organize ourselves to create the video. You can see the storyboard in the previous blog post. 

https://irenesicts.blogspot.com/2020/04/storyboard-video-project.html

The first thing you need to have to create the video is a technological device, for example a mobile phone  or a tablet, and then you have to download the app Stop Motion Studio.

Stop Motion Studio is a free app that allows you to create movies frame by frame with Timeline .It is easy to use; you can add text, filters, effects and sounds among other things. One thing that I would improve in this app is that to use some of these options you have to pay, but the price is affordable.

Here you have an example of a stop motion video in which you can see how a pulley works.

The video is called The ants and the pulley and is made by Irene and Mirian:

 

We have never made a stop motion video before, therefore to create this video we had to practice several times and move the pieces little by little to get the best possible result. The app Stop Motion Studio makes it easy to assemble the photos, the music and the visual effects.

With this activity we want to achieve two objectives that the students learn to create videos in stop motion and that they understand how the lever, the pulley and the inclined plane work.

Nowadays we believe that it is essential that students learn to handle new technologies from an early age.