Class of the 03/04/13

During last Monday, we discovered 2 new websites : 

--> Wordle.net : The point is to write a number of words you want to use, and then to arrange them in different ways (color, font, size). You also have a random button if you do not have ideas. I found this website cool and funny, but I would not use it. I have Photoshop and I learnt to use it for several years, I can do what offers this website on my own. But, for beginners, I found it truly cool. 

--> Voicethread : The point is to put our finished pictures on a "file", and to record our voice telling the story on each slide. There are several ways to do it. You can record your voice alone, draw or write on the slide, record with you webcam, etc...
I never used a tool like this one, and I am looking forward to it, even if I really hate my voice when I listen to it, but Brintha said the same about hers, so I was relieved in a way. It was funny to speak about it. 

Then, Salima had to leave us because she had a appointment. Brintha and I continued to think about our story design. We looked for the characters (what they would look like, which style they would have) and for the final design of the story itself... but, well, I will not tell what it is... We keep as a secret ;). But what I can tell you is that we thought a lot about what children of this age like, what kind of books and animes they love nowadays. It was interesting to discuss. Moreover, my experiences with children in schools and summer camps helped to choose the design. 

To finish, we talked about the software we would use like Sketchbook or Photoshop and some others. It was quite important to choose, because we will split the tasks to do, and knowing what software your comrades have and use is really helpful. Brintha also show me, the tools of Sketchbook and we began to do a first draft of a scene.

To continue about our group, I think we begin to understand each other, little by little, and to discover good points. That Monday was pleasant. We were laughing, sharing a lot, and working on our project at the same time. 
Being honest, I think now we understand how to work with each other, and the next monday will surely bring something good and interesting. 

Then, See You On Monday !

Class of 18/02/2013

Hello everyone,

During our last class, the teacher gave to each group, the class with which they will have to work for. Our class is a CM2 class, whose level of english is not so elevated. Thus, during our last lesson, we wrote our story and began to work on the worksheet.

Concerning the language part, the vocabulary that we had to use in our story is extremely limited as the level of the children is extremely limited too. Personally, I found this exercice quite difficult as our semantic field was really limited to some typical verbs and themes such as animals. We had to have some limits over the vocabulary and also the sentences had to be very "formal": subject + verbs + complement.

On the other hand, the work on pedagogy and the aspect of teaching was really interesting. We really had to imagine the capacity of the children at the age of ten approximatively. Perhaps we were asking ourself too much questions on their ability. Will they understant the term "let's" in "let's play". If we wanted the children to understand it, in fact, we have to pronounce it a certain way.

For the technology, we didn't realy think of it. Meanwhile, we thought about the final production, we thought that the idea of drawing the story by hand will be a good idea.

We were suppose to see each other during the holidays (on friday) to finish the story. But holidays made it harder, and also the other exams that we have during the following week. Thus, Alexia has finished writing the few lines of the story, and we all worked on the worksheet and gathered our idea on facebook and edmodo. Thus, our worksheet idea is ready and we tried to use each one's ideas. And I decided that I will do the drawings for the final production, I've been personally working on that.