Storytelling with Adobe Voice

I've just learned from the amazing blog http://www.freetech4teachers.com/ about an interesting IOS app called ADOBE VOICE which allows us to create video stories.

I just love storytelling and I was thinking of what story I would tell to try this out. The other day I was talking with a group of students of mine, some teenagers, about this love and hate chemistry. I was saying that sometimes feelings change and I mentioned that I knew that from experience.

I caught their attention straight away. They all wanted to know about my love/hate story. I've been postponing this storytelling, but they don't seem to forget that, LOL. This week, we've been focussing on narrative tenses, trying to improve our storytelling by using different verb tense combinations. This is a video grammar class about the topic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPQjKcnn2No

Well, back to my ADOBE VOICE trial. I thought to myself, why not use the opportunity to tell my story and see if they can notice the verb combinations we worked with last class?

Last class, apart from doing grammar exercises with Simple Past, Past Continuous, Past Perfect and Past Perfect Continuous, I asked students to choose a story to tell: a funny story, an accident, a surprising story or meeting a famous person. They had 4 minutes to choose one of the topics and write notes which would help them tell their true story to a classmate. After pairs of students told their stories, I asked them to send me their stories via Edmodo.

Next class, I'm going to start with notes I've written down about "Our love ? story" 

Can you guess my story? After students try to predict the story, I'll play the following video which I've created using ADOBE VOICE.

http://voice.adobe.com/v/Nfo2ryMskoi

 

A friend of mine, Lívia Fernandes and her very creative boyfriend, Matheus Pinheiro, created and Adobe video with their adaptation of the story "The secret of the king". I had to share it with you, it's really worth listening.

How can we use ADOBE VOICE?

This is a tutorial showing step by step how to create your own stories. The app is FREE and very intuitive.

Ipad apps for GREEN SCREEN videos

In case you don't know. WHAT'S GREEN SCREEN?

 According to EHOW,

Green Screen Classroom Projects | eHow via kwout

I've always wanted to try out creating green screen videos with my students but didn't know how to start. 

With the IPAD it's quite easy.

The easiest app in my opinion is FX Studio. Although you have to pay U$2.99 for the app, it's quite easy to create your green screen movie.
https://itunes.apple.com/br/app/green-screen-movie-fx-studio/id575716410?mt=8

http://youtu.be/_JFjo9SEewU

This was my first trial with FX Studio:

 What I liked about it:

- it's very easy to use and there are various backgrounds and effects you can choose from.

What I didn't like so much:

- As far as I know, there's no way I could use my own images in the background. :(

The second app I tried today was VideoFX Live.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/videofx-live/id478338333?mt=8

I couldn't find a youtube tutorial but at least I had access to this written tutorial which helped me a bit. http://videostarapp.com/blog/2012/03/making-better-green-screen-videos/

After some trials and errors, I discovered that first you have to click NEW FX, choose the effect USER PHOTO, click PICK PHOTO to choose a photo from your own ipad and then click RECORD to make your video. 

I feel a bit embarassed to share this simple trial but here it is.

 What I liked about it:

- the app is FREE but by paying U$ 0.99 I was able to use my own background photo.
- there are MANY background images, animations and effects to choose from.

What I didn't like so much:

- I couldn't find a tutorial easily.
- It took me some time to find how to go about the green screen effect.

Now , HOW COULD I USE THESE APPS with my own students?

I searched for some ideas and these are a few links which I really liked:

- Green Screen classroom Projects

http://www.ehow.com/info_8054435_green-screen-classroom-projects.html

- Project: students choose as a background a place they would like to visit. Then they would have to use 3 props to talk more about themselves. An example video: http://youtu.be/uovkgxCj-wY

- Project: students create a Civil War film.

http://www.doverschool.net/pdf/dovergreenscreenarticle.pdf

- The Nome Storytelling Project (Superb idea)

http://www.jasonohler.com/resources/NomeDST.cfm

Oh, something important I forgot to mention, although these kinds of videos are called GREEN SCREEN with both of the apps I mentioned you DON'T NEED a green screen at all. All you need is a blank white wall to make the recordings.

Creating with HELLOSLIDE

HELLOSLIDE is a site I heard about very recently and was meaning to try out. The site allows you to add voice to your presentations, but NOT YOUR VOICE. What you do is: you upload your presentation in PDF, type the text which you would like to hear with each slide, save and play. It's as simple as that. The good thing is that you don't need to worry about your voice or recording, you can edit it later if you need to, and then easily share it by grabbing the URL or the embed code.

This was my first trial:


I've also made a tutorial if you need help.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTFrZWNqxds

HOW CAN WE USE IT WITH STUDENTS?

• You can use the site to prepare presentations of lesson topics using ppts you already have . Then all you'd need to do is to save it as pdf and then upload it to the site.
• You can create stories introducing vocabulary.
• You can have students create their own stories and then present it in class.

Learning with/from Janet Bianchini

I love following Janet's Bianchini's blog "Civitaquana - Janet's Abruzzo's blog" http://civitaquana.blogspot.com/

What I like about it? I love her creative ideas, love the way she uses comics and photo editing tools to make her images even more interesting, love the happy tone of her posts and am enchanted with how willing she is to exchange ideas, help and share.

Well, you can imagine how happy I was when she accepted my invitation to present her session to us:  "Digital Storytelling in the Digital Era" . We had very few attendees (maybe because it was Sat. morning), nevertheless, we had a great time learning from her.

This is the ppt she used during her talk:

Storytelling in the Digital Era

View more presentations from Janet Bianchini

I loved her idea of using different webtools to narrate the same story.
You can listen to her session HERE. Click VIEW RECORDING.
As we waited for more attendees to join us, my suggestion is to let the recording upload a bit and then watch it as of 18 mins after the beginning of the recording.

Easter message with ZOOBURST

Time to test ZOOBURST and wish everyone a great Easter.

It's always time to be born again, to change attitudes, reflect about your choices, consider your priorities in life and above all share love with friends, family and those in need.




Happy Easter

Orkut Scraps and Graphics - GoodLightscraps.com

Telefable - The eyebrow story

I've found this story via David Deubelbeiss' tweet this morning.
As he suggested, it's a great story you can use in class. CLICK on the image to read this cute story.

HOW TO USE IT IN CLASS?

• Use the first page to ask students to describe Sean in pairs. Then, ask some students to tell the group. I believe many students won't know the word EYEBROW. 
• Ask them "How would you describe his eyebrows?" then go to page 2
• You can have students read it silently while you pass the pages, ask different students to read it aloud or read it yourself.
• "One day it was very windy".  Stop and ask "what do you think happened? "
• "I have an idea " Ask students to talk together and think of what idea Sean had.
• Ask students what new words they've learned.

These are some structures from the story, you can work with. Ask if students can remember the original sentence, then get students to say different variations.

It was so (windy) that ...........

He (ran) as ...... as he could

Do you have any other ideas? David, any ideas?

MORE STORIES 

Tell stories using SHOWBEYOND

This is a simple tutorial to show my trainees how to use Showbeyond to develop projects with their students. With Showbeyond, you add the images you want, record the narration for each image and then share it with the world.



A colleague of mine, told me she wanted to develop a project with daily routine and I guess a great tool they could use is SHOWBEYOND. This is my sample story.

Interview with Ozge Karaoglu

I've just had a wonderful time interviewing Ozge Karaoglu, an EFL teacher in Turkey. She talks about her experience telling stories and producing videos with her young learners.

She writes a great blog and also has a wiki with resources for teachers.

I decided to interview her so that she could share with us how she deals with storytelling with her students and how other teachers can also benefit from her ideas. Thanks Ozge for taking the time to share your experience with us!



Read about Ozge's book "Daisy and Drago" .

Her second book

Daisy and Drago and The Magic Wand

View more presentations from ozge.

The animated version of the same book with her students' voices.

Daisy & Drago and the Magic Wand from ozge karaoglu on Vimeo.

Digital Storytelling by Ozge's students

I'd like to share a wonderful blog I found this morning written by Ozge Karaoglu , a teacher in Turkey.


The video I'm sharing below was made with her 6-year-old students and is a wonderful example of what can be done to maximize the storytelling experience. You can read her post explaining how it was done here.

Little Elephant from ozge karaoglu on Vimeo.

Audio Books read by actors

I'd like to share a site I've come across which offers you the experience of reading, watching and listening to great books. The storytelling is done by well-known actors. I had such a nice time reading the books! http://www.storylineonline.net/

This is a part of one of the stories I loved : "Stellaluna"

The Message from Water

One of the tasks for the images4education course for week5 is to share a story you´ve told digitally using one of the web tools suggested. I decided to tell the story about Masaru Emoto´s work which is called "The Message from Water" He is a Japanese researcher who studied the molecules of water and what happens to these molecules when they´re exposed to music, words and thoughts.
HOPE YOU LIKE IT!

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