personification – iLearn Technology

Google Story Builder: Create a video story Google style

March 18, 2014Kelly Tenkely3 Comments18355 views

What it is: I can’t help but love Google’s commercials. They are brilliant in their simplicity and weave together a story beautifully. In the past, Google let you build a story by way of a Google search. Now with Google Story Builder, you can build a video story that looks like it is being typed live between two collaborators in a Google doc. SO very happy! It couldn’t be simpler, any age could create a fantastic little video with this tool! Students create some “characters” for their story. These characters are the Google Doc collaborators. Next, students type text for each collaborator to add to the doc. Finally, students choose music to accompany their video. That is it! When students are finished with their video, they can share it via a weblink.

How to use Google Story Builder in your classroom: Google Story Builder is an outstanding little tool for sharing a story or learning. It allows students to demonstrate learning or understanding in a fun, easy way. A lot of tools can become THE focus of a project. You know how this goes, as soon as you mention that students will be creating a video project all of the learning journey goes out the window and immediately the focus is on the hilarious video they are going to create. The learning can become an after thought. With Google Story Builder, this isn’t the case. The outcome is going to look similar for everyone so the focus is the learning and story. Creativity comes through the story and the music chosen. This is the best kind of creativity, it requires students to know the topic or subject well enough to create a mini parody of it.

Students could use Google Story Builder as a book report. Students can think about major themes or the climax of a story and retell it through the collaboration the story characters in this Google Doc. How awesome would it be to have Romeo and Juliet creating a document together? How about Junie B. Jones and That Jim I Hate? The Little Red Hen asking for collaborators for her latest cooking project?

As students learn about major players in history, they can create a Google Story about those historical figures and their interaction if they had a shared Google Doc. For example students might imagine the writers of the US constitution drafting the constitution as a Google Doc. Or Galileo arguing with the “church” (the story I told in my video).

Students could personify any inanimate object or idea as a character in a Google Story. How about parts of speech arguing which part of speech is the best or should be used in the sentence being typed? Countries of the world telling all about what they are known for? Periods of history as characters? Science ideas (evolution vs. creation)? Math stories including characters like Odd Todd and Even Steven? The possibilities are as varied as your student’s imaginations!

Teachers can create a Google Story to help their kids with inference. Create a story between two characters and ask students to infer about context. What is happening? Do you think the characters are friends or foe? Why? What do you think they are working on together?

Tips: I created the Google Story above as an example. What will you use Google Story Builder for in your classroom?

Grammaropolis: Personified Parts of Speech

March 5, 2012Kelly Tenkely4 Comments4836 views

What it is: Grammaropolis is a site I have long been a fan of. I’ve written about it in the past in these posts. Grammaropolis recently got a significant upgrade with TONS of new, great features. The site now includes character descriptions for nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns, conjunctions, prepositions and interjections. In addition to the great descriptions, each character includes a song, videos, book, games and, soon, quizzes. Not all of this content is free, but there is enough free content to be useful in every classroom no matter the budget. All of the content associated with the Noun character is free. Every other character includes the character description and book for free. The music, videos, quizzes and games are “extras” that are available by subscription. You can get your classroom a Grammaropolis passport to access all of the content including the ability to follow and track your students progress within Grammaropolis.

How to integrate Grammaropolis into the classroom: I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the Grammaropolis approach to the parts of speech is completely brilliant! I love the way Grammaropolis gives the different parts of speech a “face” and an attitude. For those of us who learn through story, Grammaropolis gives us a unique connection to the parts of speech. The books and videos are fabulous. They are extremely well done, and take the characters a step further by dropping them into a story.

The characters interact true to their characteristics. For example, in the “Noun Places” video, Noun sits looking through a photo album of places. As he flips the pages, he names the places. “Antarctica,” he says. Adjective, who is sitting next to Noun, exclaims, “beautiful!” Verb agrees, “very.” The videos and books are so well thought out and really demonstrate to students how the parts of speech are used. So smart!

Grammaropolis can be used as a whole class using an interactive whiteboard or projector-connected computer. Learn about, and explore, the different parts of speech as a class. Choose a new part of speech character each week and encourage students to spot the part of speech character in their own writing with a colored pencil or marker that matches the character color. Books can be read as a class on the big screen. Each book begins with the cast of characters with a short description of each part of speech. As you read together, discuss the way that the part of speech characteristics are revealed by their interactions with other characters. The same can be done with the videos!

Students can play the games on classroom computers as a center, or on individual computers in a lab or 1:1 setting. After your students familiarize themselves with the parts of speech characters, they can write their own creative stories featuring the characters. This is great for older students! Students will have to remember that the characters have to act in ways that are true to their nature.

Tips: There are a few different options for a Grammaropolis subscription, the options are very reasonably priced. Grammaropolis also has a brand new store that has some fun grammar shwag. If you have an iDevice, check out the Grammaropolis app!

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Grammaropolis in your classroom!

Color in Motion- Exploring Color

January 31, 2011Kelly Tenkely9 Comments3772 views

What it is: Amazing really doesn’t do this site justice. No really, this might be my favorite site of the month…that is saying something! Regardless of if you teach about color or art, Color in Motion is a must see just for the creativity and brilliance of the site. Color in motion is a wonderfully animated and interactive experience of color communication and color symbolism. Have you ever looked at an art website and thought, “really, this is the best they could do? It is a site about art for crying out loud!” No? Just me? 🙂 Color in Motion is not one of those sites. The minute you begin exploring you know that this isn’t just a site about color, it is a work of art. There are three activities on Color in Motion. The Stars introduces students to the color stars (primary and secondary colors personified). When students click on a color stars profile they learn about their blood (the color(s) that make them up), what the star is hired to represent (the feelings the color gives), the positive and negative traits, and what the color represents around the world. In the movies, students can sit back and enjoy the show as they learn about the symbolism of each color in a fun animation. In the Lab, students have the opportunity to interact with the different stars. Students can direct a scene acting as a movie director based on a word that represents the color choice. In project 2, students are a color star manager. It is up to them to decide which production their star is going to participate in based on what they learned about color symbolism. Project 3 is a kaleidoscope where students can just have fun and “play” with color in a virtual kaleidoscope.

How to integrate Color in Motion into the classroom: Color in Motion is a fantastic place for students to learn more about color in a highly interactive, engaging, and fun way. Students learn about color through story. They meet each of the colors as a different character being cast for a production. The site is great for any art or design class but could be equally wonderful for a creative writing project. After your students have had some time to explore the site and interact with the different characters, ask them to choose a character to write a story about. Students should write the story based on the character traits they know about the color.

As a getting-to-know-you activity, students could choose a color that they feel best represents them personally. Students can list all of the color attributes that they feel describe them. Are they a mix of colors? Have students write down what the mix is and why.

Looking for a way to spice up spelling/vocabulary practice? Have students assign each word a color based on the word meaning and the color character traits that match. Students can compare and contrast the colors they chose for the words with the colors other students chose for a light persuasive argument.

As students study historical and literary figures, they can assign each a color based on the matching character traits. It would make a really neat bulletin board to have a color wheel with pictures of historical/literary characters on each color based on the similar character traits. These types of activities help students draw parallels and think about history and literature in new ways.

Younger students can think about what color an animal would be if it was the color of its color character traits. The creative possibilities with Color in Motion are endless.

Oh yeah, in addition to all of those “spin-off” ideas, there are great creative activities right on the site many of which would be great for whole class with a projector-connected computer or interactive whiteboard, for small groups in a center activity, or individually in a one to one computer situation.

Tips: Color in Motion can be viewed in both English and Spanish. If you have students learning English or Spanish as a second language, the colors and adjectives on this site are wonderful!

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Color in Motion in your classroom.