Happily Blogging 3

3 effective blogs for classroom use.

Glogster http://edu.glogster.com/

Website that allows creation of interactive digital 'posters'.
Students can combine multimedia to go beyond what a traditional poster could accomplish, so instead of text and pictures glued on cardboard, a completed glog may incorporate graphics and text, links to websites, embedded video and audio, and is accessible across the web, rather than just the classroom. Glogster provides galleries of content, via an easy 'Drag and Drop' method. Its suitable for all stages.

Pixton http://www.pixton.com/uk/schools/overview

Like Toondoo, Pixton is a digital comic creator, allowing students to contrl every aspect of story creation. it allows development of ideas in a interactive way, while learning how to tell a story in a logical sequence, communication and colaboration with others and visual storytelling. Completed comics can be saved and embedded on the web, to be shared with others. it is customizable for use across all stages.

Myths and Legends http://myths.e2bn.org/index.php

I remember becomng interested in myths and legends from about 8 onwards, and can see the application of this site for stage 2. As well as providing students with information about myths and legends, the website provides students with their own story creator. Students can take frames provided from the website and record themselves narrating their own story, similar to I-Movie, I-Photo, Garageband, etc.

Text Innovation - Powerpoint

I decided to choose Mo Willems 'City Dog, Country Frog', almost purely because the watercolours are so grand.
The story is set into distinct seasonal 'chapters', where the frog and dog each decide on different activities to try. So with a description of each activity students are aided in naming the seasons, and in comprehension of the book.

Embedded New Literacies Flick

Northwest Tree Octopus.
The video explores truth and untruth on seemingly authentic sites, via the Northwest Tree Octopus hoax. Its provides an example of internet site believed to be accurate by some viewers, and is an exercise in not trusting everything posted on the web.
The implication is that new literacies, since they often involve a collaborative effort, provide less visibiity for individual contributers and less accountability in providing the truth. Therefore new literacies could be deemed as untrustworthy is comparison to traditional media outlets.
Kids are in an age where they can access anything from anywhere, by anyone, but have difficulties in determining the trustworthiness of information presented digitally. They tend to believe anything posted online, without critiquing where it originated or bias's inherent in its production. as kids are exposed to new literacies in the classroom, teachers themselves need to become more internet-aware, but are not receiving the needed support and training.