Green Screen Weather Reporting

Our BLC students have been learning about weather, seasons and time.

They each produced a weather report for the week by illustrating the weather for each day of the week in the form of symbols and then writing a detailed description of their forecasted weather for each day.

Students then entered our makeshift green screen studio to record their weather report.  We used the Green Screen by DoInk app to achieve this.

Students learned how the green screen technology works and were surprised to see that the image on the iPad screen was different to the plain green wall that they were sitting in front of.

 

We learnt that if the iPad ‘connects’ to the green screen it means you can see the weather map and not the green screen.  Ollie, Thomas, Scarlett

I learnt that there is such (a thing as) a green screen. Xavier

I learnt that if you wear anything green it will become see through. Naomi

 

Here are a few of our weather reports.

Katie worked out how to point at each day as she spoke, which was quite tricky because everything appeared back to front on the iPad screen.

After the students had finished recording their weather reports, they watched this video to see how a professional weather man does it.  The learnt that it is actually very similar to how they did it.

 

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My Year in Reception

This term the two reception classes have been looking at the central idea

How I grow and change shows the passing of time

As an ICT activity for the students, we helped them prepare a short video clip titled ‘My Year in Reception’.

This involved selecting their favourite event from each term of the school year, drawing a storyboard and then talking about each event and recording their voice on our Easi-speak microphones.   Students were able to independently use these microphones and were delighted when they were able to immediately play back their recording and hear their voice.

Staff then sourced photographs and created project files for each child in Windows Live Movie Maker.  Some of the students were able to learn some skills in using Movie Maker by selecting background colours for slides and adding their name at the beginning and end of the video clip.  However, due to time restraints and the skill level of the students, most of the editing was done by staff.

Here are some samples of the student’s video clips.

Grace          Ava

Will             Hayden

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School blogs & wikis

Well, we’re over half way through 2011 and we’ve managed to get quite a few blogs and wikis up and running in our school this year.  These blogs and wikis fall into several categories, as follows.

1.  Teacher Blogs/Wikis

These blogs/wikis are written and maintained by the class teacher, usually for the junior primary classes.  The teacher uses the blog/wiki to write about the learning activities in their class and usually accompany this with photos and occasionally video.  They upload documents and newsletters to their blog and insert links to websites that may be useful for the students and parents to access at home.  The teachers in these classes are finding that the blog/wiki is a great way of communicating with parents and keeping them in touch with the daily/weekly activities in the class.

Mrs Thelning’s Year 1 Blog
Miss Kreymborg’s Year 1 Blog
 Mrs Norman’s Reception Class Wiki

2.  Class Blogs

These blogs are written by both the teacher and the students.  A classroom blog may contain posts about excursions, sport, units of inquiry and other classroom activities.

Mrs Fudali & Mrs Hall’s “Year 5 Bloggers” Blog

Besides sharing information beyond the classroom, using blogs is a great way for students to improve their ICT skills and get experience using an emerging technology. Students also improve their literacy skills while blogging, and it a fantastic opportunity for students to learn about appropriate online behaviours.

3.  Student Group Blog

A group of keen year 7 writers have created a blog called “Over the Picket Fence”.  In this blog the students write posts containing stories, poetry, book reviews, recipies, random facts, sport, interviews, excursions, random facts, optical illusions, comics, photos and other entertaining reading.  It is a great place for the students to practice their writing skills and learn about the world of blogging.  They are encouraged to comment on each other’s posts and are taught the correct etiquette for writing comments.

Year 7 Writers Group Blog

The staff & students involved in this blog have made a promotional video.  It runs for about 12 minutes and is too large to upload here, but you can click on the following link to see the Over the Picket Fence promo intro.  If you’d like to see the whole video, please contact me.

4.  Year 7 PYP Exhibition Blog

An area that is critical to success in the PYP exhibition is communication.  To assist in effective communication, an exhibition blog/wiki has been established for use by teachers, students and parents.  This blog/wiki  has been set up as a great tool for:

  • Sharing ideas.
  • Recording progress.
  • Communicating amoung students, staff and parents.
  • Displaying information, photos and other media related to the chosen lines of enquiry.
  • Linking to useful websites.

Students will be able to add posts, comments and contribute to group wiki pages.  As the site grows, it will contain heaps of valuable information about the learning & preparatory activities associated with the exhibition.

Year 7 PYP Exhibition Blog 

5.  Staff Blog

The staff blog has been recently set up as a communication and collaboration tool for staff.  It is used to record morning notices, weekly e-bulletins, staff movements and other general information.  It also contains links to useful websites, shared resources, staff information and photos.  It has proved beneficialby being able to access this information from outside of the school and for recording all of this type of information in the one, easy to get to, place.

Staff Blog

6.  Student blogs & wikis

Although we haven’t implemented any yet, student blogs and wikis are a great way for individual students to keep a journal of their learning activities or present information about a particular topic or line of inquiry.

 

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“Reception Owls” wiki

ReceptionOwlsPicture

Mrs Norman has created a fantastic wiki to let us know what’s happening in her class this year.  It’s called Reception Owls and contains photos, videos, diaries and lots of information about the learning activities in her classroom.

To have a look, click here or go to http://receptionowls.wikispaces.com/ 

If you’d like to know more about wikis, try visiting these links

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