Thanks to Kris Holden, I too discovered Dvolver.com.
With this website, it is so easy to create your own movies in cartoon or 3D. I can see this being particularly useful in dramas classes and English lessons. It would be a great way to encourage creative writing or generally foster creativity among your learners (a key idea behind Sir Ken Robinson's presentation 'Do schools kill creativity). The site would be ideal for teaching the concept of dialogue and plot, as well as punctuation, spelling and grammar since learners can see the results of the text they type in as they preview their mini-movies.
Using this website would be a fun and exciting way to engage learners... imagine an English lesson in which you are looking at narratives and story telling. Wouldn't creating a mini-movie using this website be a fantastic way for small groups of students (or even the whole class) to collaborate on a story, present it to an outside audience (for example, their parents or peers), all the while being engaged in a direct, hands-on purposeful learning experience (in accordance with Engagement theory and Dale's Cone)? The 'Active learners' in your class (Felder & Soloman, 2009) and those with dominant visual, musical and/ or linguistic intelligences (Birmingham Grid for Learners, 2010), would surely benefit from a learning experience involving Dvolver.
This is a fantastic site, and I'm sure students would find it as much fun to use as I did. I highly recommend visiting the site, and having a go at creating your own mini movie, or even better, introducing it to your EPL class and working it into one of your lessons!
Kind regards,
Karlee
Hi Karlee, that is fantastic! What an excellent idea. I really think students who normally might not like writing would love something like that. It would really get them to use their creativity and imagination too. You could use it for so many topics too. Thanks for sharing this, I can't wait to try it myself!
ReplyDeleteRegards,
Carolyne
GDLT Primary p/t
Hi Carolyne,
ReplyDeleteThanks for your positive comments. I too agree that introducing this website to students who don't normally like writing, just might get them excited about writing and inspire some creativity. There is one boy in my 4/5 EPL class who often refuses to write in his journal - he just doesn't like writing and finds it difficult to express his thoughts on paper. I had the difficult task of trying to convince him to write something in his journal last week and it just wasn't happening! Perhaps, I will ask my mentor teacher if I could use this website with him. Hope you had fun experimenting with Dvolver!
Kind regards,
Karlee
Hi Karlee,
ReplyDeleteThanks, I found this site too and created a movie
about Mothers Day. When I first started creating it I didn't think it would have much application but after I had finished I saw a multitude of uses in every subject and another great way of keeping our students engaged.
Thanks again,
Penny