This week the Tech Play assignment had a big emphasis on “play”.
Researching and playing with different creativity tools was so much fun! There were some that I played with on my
laptop and some on my iphone. There were
some tools that I really liked and some that I didn’t like so much. All in all, I believe this assignment was a
major success in providing me with some new and exciting ways to effectively
integrate technology into my classroom.
The tools that I didn’t enjoy too much included Wunderlist
and Intro Designer Lite. I really don’t
need another task organizer, though if I ever get to the point where I need to
share my to-do lists with others I may reconsider using this tool. With Intro Designer Lite, perhaps if I had
more play time or had the money to purchase the non-lite version I might have
liked it more, but to me it just wasn’t very exciting.
The three tools that were my favorites were Animoto, Puppet
Pals and Prezi. With Animoto, I had so
much fun playing around with the templates and liked how easy it was to add my
photos and captions. I was able to turn
a few pictures of my kids into a little movie that they kept wanting to watch
over and over and over again. I didn’t like
some of the editing features and had a little bit of difficulty adding videos,
but it is definitely a tool I would like to have in my arsenal. Puppet Pals was also a blast. The free version was pretty limited to the
amount of characters and backgrounds, but I was able to come up with a few
silly shows with the free characters that at least my kids seemed to
enjoy. Finally, there was Prezi. Now granted this one may not have been as
much “fun” as the other two and I’m still trying to learn all of its
capabilities, but I feel like I am finally getting the hang of Prezis and am
really looking forward to exploring it more.
Puppet Pals is the technological tool that I wanted to reflect
on how to utilize it in my classroom.
The content I chose to focus on was for 4th-6th
grade English class, specifically reading a book. The technology would require iphones or
ipads, which may be an obstacle if the school district doesn’t have and/or
allow these devices in the classroom, but for this discussion I am going to say
that this isn’t an issue. Some of the
different lesson activities would be for individual students to re-enact a portion
of the book, partners to work together to predict what happens next in the
book, and groups to portray how the story might be altered if set in a
different time period. All of these
activities should help students better comprehend the reading, keep the students
interested in it, and give them an opportunity to express their creativity. This tool shouldn’t be limited to just
English though. Any content area could
use this tool and it’s especially great for the students that are shy or embarrassed
to get up in front of a class and do a presentation. Because it’s not the student doing the
talking, it’s the puppet, and sometimes that small little fact can make a world
of difference. Science classes could use
the “Arthropod Armada” and “Space” characters, history classes could perform “Thanksgiving”
and “Wild West” puppet shows, and there’s even “Political Party” characters for
a government class. And these are just
the obvious uses. Puppet Pals allows you
to upload your own photos and backgrounds so the possibilities are really
endless.
It is so important to give students outlets to express their
creativity. All of these different technological
tools allow them to think in ways that tutorials and instructional games just can’t. Students are able to discover and enhance
their inventiveness and resourcefulness in really fun and exciting ways. These tools also provide them with new
outlets of self-expression and connect them not only to their teacher and
classmates but to the world around them.
Please see below for some of my favorite creativity tools’ “play”:
-Animoto: My Short Movie
-Puppet Pals:
-Prezi: My Presentation
No comments:
Post a Comment