Mother Tongue Week

Soon it will be Mother Tongue Week at school. I thought that I'd get a jump-start on things and make a story together with my youngest son in his Mother Tongue which is Indonesian. Today is a public holiday so we went to explore the river at our housing estate. My son likes to play there and catch little fish. We made a story about this. I plan to get it printed up with hard back binding.

Ikan-Ikan Kecil (Little Fish)

Google Translate App for iPhone - Seriously Cool!

Wow what a fantastic app!! It was just last week that I helped the Chinese teachers at school to get a Google account so that they could use Google Docs as an aid for translation/enhanced communication during staff meetings and training sessions. At the same time I showed them Google Translate - http://translate.google.com The teachers were so excited by the prospect of using Google Docs together with Google Translate. Since that session, some of the teachers told me about how useful it has been for them to be able to use Google Docs during meetings combined with Google Translate. It has really helped them to keep up with what is being discussed.

Today via my Twitter feed @javajive informed me about the newly released Google Translate for iPhone http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/google-translate/id414706506?mt=8



I immediately downloaded it to try out. I am so impressed. The App can translate text between 57 languages and translates by speaking (not typing) for 15 languages. It will also speak 23 languages from written text.

I am thinking of all the ways this App can support language learning. How exciting!!!

Digital Stories for Inquiry

Today in Grade 1 the class continued to create a digital story about the habitat at school that they have been studying. The students have been studying the Koi pond at school and the story that they are making is about about the Koi fish that live in that pond.
Here is one of the stories in progress:


Where the Koi Fish Live

iPads Apps for Jakarta World Academy

We are preparing the image for our first trial use of iPads at Jakarta World Academy. I have selected a few apps from my own image to test use at the school. Here are just some from my selection. The age range for these apps are K1-Gr 1.

JWA Apps

Weebly Portfolios

The Grade 4 and 5 students at SWA have been trialling the use of Weebly portfolios. Last quarter the Weebly sites were started and the expectation this quarter is for all subjects to have a page for portfolio work.

At SWA the Grade 4 and 5 students are in the 1:1 laptop program. This gives them easy access to be able to create most of their school work in a digital format. It is a natural extension to make the portfolios in digital format.

Originally the students made their portfolios in either Keynote or iWeb on the laptops. This made it difficult to access in that students had to have their laptops in order to see the portfolio. By having the work online, it has allowed parents to keep up to date with their child's work as often as they like.



What's Good About Weebly
Weebly allows the teacher to access the student websites from inside the admin controls for editing. It also allows for a class password to be used which gives extra privacy for younger users. It has an easy drag and drop interface which is simple for even the most tech-challenged to use.
I personally like that students can upload a video directly to their sites without having to host it elsewhere and embed it. Weebly is also integrated with Scribd.com so that Word or Pages documents can be directly uploaded to be embedded in the page. There are many options for photo displays with galleries or simple photo+paragraph choices. For more information - check out the video overview of the site

A Digital Story from a Kindergarten Kid - he is only 4!

This wonderful story was created by a Kindergarten student. It is about playing together and includes a moral.

Walking with Dinosaurs using Green Screen with Kindergarten

Today the K2 at SWA began making a project about Walking with Dinosaurs. The students in Kindergarten have been busy making 3D dinosaurs using the Spore Creature Creator. These dinosaurs can dance and move how ever the students want them to.

To take it a step further, the students were filmed dancing in front of the Green Screen in Kindergarten. This was then layered together in iMovie with the captured dinosaurs. When working with Spore you can layer photographs by choosing the plain background. With videos you need to green screen the footage with the person so that they can be inserted into the film next to the dinosaur.

Here's how to do that:

First insert the Spore dinosaur film into the iMovie timeline. Crop the video in the settings so that the dinosaur is on one side of the screen. Make sure that in the Spore program settings you have selected the highest resolution so that the film is smooth and of a good quality.



Then take the green screen footage and crop it so that the child is on the right side of the screen to leave more room for the dinosaur on the left side.





Then try playing to check that the movement matches and doesn't over lap too much. Here is my finished clip.

Ciptura School Google App Slideshow

Here is the link to the slideshow on Google Docs
https://docs.google.com/present/edit?id=0AWKVF3RvO6uGZGZkZzRmcjhfNjRyejYyd2hr&hl=en&authkey=CNOVgdIJ

StoryJumper Online Story Maker

This online story maker is very easy to use. I tried uploading a story that I made using Comic Life with a class of Grade 1 students. The story was created offline and exported as .jpg files making it a simple upload. The link to view it is here The Story of Merapi

Writing Chinese Characters with a Stylus Directly on the Macbook Trackpad

Today I tried out something new. I learned how to input Chinese characters by writing them on the multi-touch trackpad with a stylus.

First you will need to activate your Trackpad handwriting window. The keypress shortcut is shift-control-spacebar



You need to set your Macbook so that you can input both the simplified Pinyin and traditional characters. In your System Preferences, open the 'Language and Text' settings.



Make sure that you check the 'Chinese - Simplified' box and select Trackpad Handwriting.



You can input using your finger - or for more accuracy, you can use an iPad or iPhone stylus.


Here is an iPad stylus that I bought for about $12 at Poins Square in Jakarta.



Here is the video I took this morning showing some of SWA's Chinese language teachers playing with the stylus on the Macbook trackpad.