| Digital - teacher | Education in a technological world

Animoto and the Classroom Code

We've just renewed our Animoto account for school for another 180 days. I really can't fault Animoto on their service. We've been using them since early 2008, and they've never charged us a penny for what they provide.

Pushing the limits...

I've been working with several classes for the past few weeks, looking at how computer games and systems have evolved over the past 30 years. I showed my class my very own Binatone TV games system - from 1976 - and we even plugged it in and had a quick play on the tennis game.

Shameless publicity

Using iMovie on my MBP, and the AppMakr simulator, I quickly put together this brief demo of the school app showing all the features within it. A shameless plug I know, but there you go :o)

Everyday a new discovery...

In my last post I mentioned that I had been fortunate enough to try out the new title from 2Simple before it is released at the BETT show, from this Wednesday - Saturday. As I keep returning to 2CaSS I seem to find a new feature hidden away!

2CreateASuperStory

Ever since 2Simple held their advisors day at the headquarters in London I have been eagerly awaiting their latest offering; 2Create a Superstory. With the promise of easy animation, simple storyboarding and augmented reality features it really seemed to be a title too good to be true.

The training is paying off

I was really pleased after school today to see the fruits of my training labours (from last year) paying off. I was in my classroom when a Teaching Assistant came in to ask a question about using the Smart Notebook software to create a resource. 

Embedded Timelines

I've been looking for an online timeline creator, that could be used to show some of the key events that have occured over the past 100 years both in and out of the school (seeing as this year we celebrate 100 years of education in the same building).

Wordpress blog video tutorials

Southwark Primary School have created a whole load of videos about how to blog for beginners. Their ICT coordinator has been very busy developing these video tutorials herself and they give very clear instructions if you are using a wordpress blog; http://southwarkict.wordpress.com

This is creative video making

I was pointed to this stop-motion animation by @joecar. It is an amazing piece of work, and as Joe said on his blog "Expect to see advert made like this in next six months"

The creator of the video explained how he made it;

At first I photographed stop motion animation. And I displayed the photographs in my room and photographed it again. I used 1,300 printed pictures...Some musicians add music on my video and reupload it. Thank you very much.

Time to learn some Flash

I wish I could remember all the work I did on Flash a few years back in my digital teacher project days. I have had a great idea for a teachers whiteboard resource, but I cannot realise the idea until I can remember some of the stuff I've forgotten!

It's so frustrating to know WHAT I want to do, but not be able to do it because I can't remember HOW!

Now, where did I put the Flash actionscript book?

UK Schools Video

If you are creating video with pupils in schools - and let's face it with the ease of creating digital video nowadays who isn't - I've been investigating Vimeo as a host for video files since the demise of Google Video as an option to upload video to the web.

I'm impressed so far - it's free (there is a paid for "plus" version) and they host videos quickly and easily. Videos can be embedded onto your websites (or learning platforms) and, in our LA (Nottinghamshire), are not filtered or blocked unlike youtube or googlevideo.

I've also set up the "UK Schools Video" group within Vimeo - obviously designed as a place to showcase your video work to other schools. To join it, just click here and then follow the instructions.

Hopefully some of you who have created video previously, or are doing so now, will join it. I look forward to seeing your videos soon.

Animoto and iPhone

My big annoyance with the iPhone is that lack of Flash support. This means that all the great animoto videos we create for school cannot be seen on an iPhone. Until now that is. I think I've found a way around it.

I accidently clicked on an animoto "your video is ready" email whilst using the iPhone, and as a result the animoto iphone app opened. This asked me whether I wanted to download and play the full length movie - naturally I agreed and I was watching a three and half minute creation on my iPhone.

Up until now I have only been able to watch the short self made "on iphone" movies of 16 images. This opens up a whole new prospect of all the school animations being viewable by iPhone users. I have added a small graphic below where the flash movie displays - that should appear on iphones - and I am testing this further to see whether it really does work.