An Xtranormal Experience with 7-year-old kids

Technology is like electricity: it is pervasive, boundless, it is everywhere… it is useful. We teachers ignore it at our peril. We would never expect our pupils to use typewriters or read by candlelight. Equally, we should be encouraging them to use the tools they have available, the tools with which they are familiar if we are to ensure they remain engaged and motivated.

I had longed searched for a tool with which students could work collaboratively and have fun at the same time. Xtranormal (www.xtranormal.com) entitles itself as a text-to-movie website which allows teachers and students to create short films with their own scripts by using clever text-to-speech technology. This means students write a script and then feed in into Xtranormal to produce films with characters dramatizing it.

My pupils, 7-8 year olds are rather motivated learners and loud as any kid their age. Needless to say they are crazy about technology and a simply coming to the board can turn into great excitement. They were first introduced to Xtranormal, a webtool with which they were not familiar yet, at one of our regular classes. I have created a short version of myself teaching and saying their names thus quickly managed to engage my students’ attention: it soon transpired that this was an activity they wanted to do. With a few jaws almost touching the floor I said the magic words: “You are going to create animated videos like this one!” – They were amazed and could not wait to start.

I allowed my students a few minutes to brainstorm dialogues they wanted to transform into animations. In small groups they came up with simple chunks of words in accordance with what they had previously studied. The most creative dialogues among the groups was the one chosen to be featured in the short-film. While they were in charge of creating the dialogues, I was on the computer editing the video according to their like. And then, our first animation was born. Once they were all satisfied the script and the editing were finished to the best of each pupil’s ability, they were then set the homework: bring in more ideas for dialogues for the next videos. And ideas poured in the following classes. They wanted to create a video every class. It was difficult to tame their incitement.

Some teachers have reported problems during the implementation due to parental authorization. I, myself, strongly believe that in such cases not only the kids should be engaged in the project but parents too! Having the support of parents by adding a little note with the link to our first video on the institutional letter helped me get going with the project. Great Slander once taught me: "Should any problems with parents arise; I would try to convince them by showing how powerful the experience is, provide them with examples and explain how safe the kids will be."

My conclusion is that the upshots of this project could not have been any better. Using this tool has enabled my students to revisit vocabulary and structures, thus contributing for their learning and comprehension of the language as a whole. I was very happy myself with the feeling of accomplishment we had.

I would surely do this project again without any changes since it has helped me realize the importance of the role of technology in current education. Paraphrasing Shelly Terrell, we should use technology not only because our pupils use it or will be expected to in their careers. We need to use technology to tear down our classroom walls. We should use technology to show students that their voices can travel the world just like ours do when we tweet, blog or update a status on Facebook. We need to use technology to motivate students to continuously research and to show them that their work transcends beyond the class syllabus.

Vocabulary - How do you talk to your kids?

While reading some blogs it dawned on me how much we are used to water down our language just for the sake of adapting our vocabulary to our students. And this is so sad! Why treating kids as if they were idiots? (sorry for the word). I vividly remember my mom telling me off because whenever we met a baby I was all about "Gucci, gucci, baby - ne ne ne" and she used to say: "The baby is not an idiot. Talk to him normally" I never quite understood why. (!)

Look around and you'll see how poor kids language inventory is. How many "but" and "ands" and "whiches" and "sos" do you have to face in a daily-basis.

Maybe we are the ones to be blamed. Either for not giving proper instruction or for not talking them into using more sophisticated words and estructures. Students nowadays may have their language repertoire

Children learn the best from what they see and hear from their parents, teachers and important adults around them. Modeling behavior and using appropriate vocabulary will help children learn and grow. This is true for children at all ages. Working in early education, I feel it's important to speak to even young children with respect for their intelligence. Children love to play with words, and they usually remember more than we do.

For this, I would like to share with you some food for thought extracted from a video (embedded below) by Stephen Fry

"For me, it is a cause of some upset that more Anglophones do not enjoy language. Music is enjoyable it seems, so are dance and other, athletic form of movemement. People seem to be able to find sensual and sensuous pleasure in almost anything but WORDS"

This reminds me of Cecilia Coelho when invited to write a guest post on Ken Wilson's Blog she got us thinking about the difference between "Listen" and "Hear".

"Hearing is about perceiving the sound whilst listening is about paying attention to what you hear, decoding it. (...) When it comes to your students' efforts in using English to express themselves - be it orally or in writing - do you listen or just hear them?"

Great, isn't it?

Finally, I would like to share a great tool I've found to teach vocabulary in a very dynamic and fun way: www.languageguide.org. It aims to develop 3 types of resources:

Pictorial Vocabulary Resources - which contains image based pages as well as complementary pages with adjectives, verbs, and expressions. Where you can place the cursor and listen to the words.

Interactive Readings - which help develop comprehension skills and build vocabulary.

Grammar Guides - which are experimental introductory grammar guides for French, Spanish and English

Youtube goes interactive and educational

One can find almost everything on Youtube nowadays. From how-to-solve-the-magic-cube videos to those which inspire and help us teachers develop in our adventure of teaching.

Firstly, I'd like to talk about interaction, one of the pilars of Web 2.0. Interaction among users is key to a sucessful social media. Blogging, Twittering, Commenting on Facebook feeds all require interaction and that's what drives them to conquer the world we live in. For the very first time you can interact not only by commenting on Youtube videos, but also change the course of the video itself --- AMAZING!

How to use it in class:

When the video leads you to a copy of a youtube page - when in reality is a Flash miracle - ask your students what class of word they can use in the blank (answer = verbs) - Students can come up with as many verbs as they want and see the characters of this great ad acting as they commanded!

This way you can review verbs, commands, verb agreement, pronoun use and the works!

Secondly, I would like to call the attention of educators around the globe to the magnificent strand of Youtube: Youtube Educational Videos.

Inspired by Shelly Terrell's (@ShellTerrell) last post on her blog when she invited Kimberly Bowen to write about Youtube Educational Videos, I decided to give it a try.

At first I used to listen and see TED TALKS as my main imagery inspirational tool. However, I was greatly surprised by some of the EdVideos on Youtube.

Since youtube is quite more popular among students than TED Talks (which is especifically designed to educators)- this tool may help your students foster their learning onwership.

Why Using YouTube Educational Videos:

- Learning takes place not only inside the walls of a classroom. So, it's a nice idea to get students to discover their own learning pace. On Youtube they can watch videos whenever and wherever there's an internet connection. They may watch it how many times they wish as it is not a real-time presentation.

- Students can have the opportunity to access the presenter by commenting on the videos or sending him/her an e-mail. This way, they're not only learning but also building their own PLN.

Have you tried? I'd love to hear from you what your fave ones are!

Here's one of mine:

See you in a post! :-)