Okay, this one will be pretty niche, but this is a small poster I made for the school lectern to encourage speakers to use the microphone more effectively.
Design & Technology
Learning DMX
We’ve just purchased a DMX enabled follow-spot for our school drama area. It’s just shame my brain isn’t DMX enabled to operate it! There’s quite a few tutorials around but this one from UniqueSquared (the first in a series of five) is short, pithy and has turkeys! The second video covers DMX addressing: The third
Earth Sandwich
For the uninitiated, an ‘Earth Sandwich’ is created when “two slices of bread are simultaneously placed on opposite sides of the Earth” with of course the obligatory ‘pics or it didn’t happen’ from the two people on different sides of the world. Like these below from the Irish Examiner news site. There’s lots of info
NASA Audio Files
NASA have greats election of audio files at NASA: Connect > Audi and Ringtones. My Year 7/8 students selected then edited these in Audacity to create loops for a soundscape to accompany the Apollo 11 Moon landing. NASA Videos are available at Apollo 11 HD Videos.
Tags: resources, Soundscape, SpaceSync Music Playlists – collapsing all
When I sync my iTunes playlists with my iPad or iPhone, the playlists are – by default – all expanded. Collapsing these, all scrolling to the bottom can be quite frustrating and time consuming. However… Clicking with Ctrl + Down Arrow on any of the expand / collapse triangles will collapse all the playlists. Brilliant!
The Three Billy Goats Gruff: Shadow Puppets
The Three Billy Goats Gruff story lends itself marvelously for drama explorations. With only two characters ‘on-stage’ at any one time it’s also ideal for small-group puppetry. This download is a set of character silhouettes that are ideal for use as shadow puppets. Just cut the shapes out, glue on sticks and away you go. Students
Silent Movies, Musicless Videos & Bad Lip Reading
My current middle school performing arts unit is on Film Sound and traditionally students demonstrate their knowledge of Foley sound by recording a short video and adding sound effects to it. This year we’ve utilised the rich diversity that is youtube and made use of the many silent movies, musicless videos and bad-lip reading videos
Tags: Bad lip reading, Foley, Musicless Videos, Silent Movies, Sound editingLego Moviemaker App Manual
I’ve been using the Lego Movie Maker app with our students for a while now. The app is free (yipee!) and although it’s a bit clunky in places it’s proven a real hit with children from ages 6-14. If you do any stop motion animation on the iPad or iPhone give it a go. And feel free
Tags: manual, stop motion animationDaisy the Dinosaur: Programming for (Lower) Primaries
What it is: an iPad app for introducing programming concepts. Who it’s for: F-2 students (or older students with no programming background) Australian Curriculum link: “Follow, describe and represent a sequence of steps and decisions (algorithms) needed to solve simple problems.” (ACTDIP004) This little (and free) introduction-to-programming app has lots going for it. It’s aimed at
Tags: apps, programmingYear 2 Technology: The Three Pigs
The Three Pigs is a wonderfully rich starting point for a technology and design unit. Students can investigate house plans, material strength, hinges and how they work, cooking utensils, wolf-trap making and lots more! Here’s the unit sheet for the Year 2 topic I taught, complete with simple rubric and parental explanation. Technology Plan: The Three
Tags: fairy tale, pigs, technology