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
