Voices Of The World

Voices Of The World

VOTW was created by Sharon Tonner, a lecturer at University of Dundee to connect children using their voices rather than text and images.

Forum

Kelly Black

Dissertation writing help needed

Started by Kelly Black 12 May

Eva Rekkedal

April task - discussion 21 Replies

Started by Eva Rekkedal. Last reply by Anna Karidi Pirounaki 9 May.

LATEST NEWS

Let's make a book together.

VOTW book by us!



October's Task Goes Live - November's Task Is Released

October's task is now live for all to view. Go the VOTW wikispace and select October. I hope you enjoy watching and listening to all the National Anthems or local songs.

November's task is simple but I can assure you the end result will be very effective. The theme is the nursery rhyme 'twinkle, twinkle, little star' to which the children will sing in their own language. My vision is join all the songs together so they go smoothly from one to the next. To do this I need everyone to sing in the key and speed. How do I manage this to do this? Quite easy. I have create 10 backing tracks to 'Twinkle Twinkle' on the good old keyboard then saved them as MP3 files.

For those interested they send me an email and I will then send them one of the backing tracks so that there is variety.

You task is to use the backing track and record your children singing 'Twinkle Twinkle', in their own language, along with the track.

Send the recording to me with the typed words of Twinkle Twinkle in the language the song is song (if English then no need to do the typed words).

I will then join all together in a special way that I am sure you will like with each version moving easy from one to the next.

Because the final product is one large slidecast it would still be nice to have individual contributions on a page so children can click on a specific country without listening to the whole thing.

With the audio you created you can get the children to draw a picture to represent Twinkle Twinkle and upload both to One True Media to create a simple presentation like the example below which I made in a few minutes (I will be creating one with the children's work when back at school).



Sharon
 

Welcome To Voices Of The World

Welcome To Voices Of The World, a place to connect educators around the world.
This network was created by Sharon Tonner, now a University Lecturer, to connect children together using their voices rather than the written or typed word. It was also created to enable children to develop an appreciation of different languages, accents and dialects from around the world.

We are now in our second year of VOTW where each month a new task is put to the members. Members first place suggestions for the month's task in the FORUM with other members making further suggestions. Once an agreement is made, a teacher is chosen to lead the monthly task. Again all information is placed in the FORUM.

The aim is to release a task at the beginning of the month with all contributions completed by the end of the month. Contributions are in the form of embedded code which are sent to Sharon who then places them on the VOTW wikispace.

The VOTW wikispace for that month is not released until the last day of the month so that all members can look and view all contributions from around the world.

If you would like to join, you need to have primary school children to work with who are not in a participating school.

The aim of VOTW is to hopefully allow children to appreciate the voices of other children from all around the world.

Blog Posts

Eva Rekkedal

Instructions for May task - the last task this year

Dear, Voices of the World

Sorry for being so late with our instructions for the last task. We've been discussing what to do, and here is what we came up with:

We will celebrate ourselves, with our 2 year of anniversary/birthday:

Use MyPlick (we don't want to give you extra work with a new tool)

Make three photos/illustration for birthday, real cakes would be really nice;-))

Here are the words we all are suppose to say in our native language:

First you make your first slide with your school… Continue

Posted by Eva Rekkedal on 14 May 2009 at 10:23am — 5 Comments

Anna Karidi Pirounaki

Tree Day


22 May 2009 .. many schools all over Europe will plant 1..2...3...103 trees
Think about if your pupils would like to join this global event and make your registration
here

Posted by Anna Karidi Pirounaki on 13 May 2009 at 3:46pm

Eva Rekkedal

Instructions for April task: The Solar System

As 2009 is the Year of Astronomy, this month task is to do an activity concerning this.

You create a video the way you like, and be as creative you can using various ‘objects, materials’ presenting and saying the 9 planets mixed up with your kids favorite music –or creating your own!- beginning from the closer to the Sun planet.

(since 2006.. the planets are 8 + 1 dwarf planet)

You are free to choose the way you make your video, and where to upload it (e.g. Google Video, Teacher Tube).

Here… Continue

Posted by Eva Rekkedal on 31 March 2009 at 5:30pm — 1 Comment

Anna Karidi Pirounaki

Ideas for April's task..

OSS – OUR SOLAR SYSTEM


As far as 2009 is the Year of Astronomy I would like to suggest for this month task an activity concerning this..

We may create a video the way we like and be creative using various ‘objects, materials’ presenting and saying the 9 planets mixed up with our kids favorite music –or creating our own!- beginning from the closer to the Sun planet..

( since 2006.. the planets are 8 + 1 dwarf planet)

We are free to choose the way we have to make our video and where to… Continue

Posted by Anna Karidi Pirounaki on 20 March 2009 at 7:00am — 1 Comment

Tecnoteach

Finding The Ties That Bind

Harold Edgerton, the inventor of the strobe light, once explained:

'when he wanted to to find something out, first he would ask around to see whether anybody knew the answer, then he would try it out in the lab himself, and only then would he try looking the information up in a book or library.'

There are many similarities to today's networked communities to the networked labs of the past. Today we use our social electronic networks to connect, learn and share with others. Children are using this technology at home to find answers to their homework by first asking someone through MSN. If unsuccessful they 'google' it. Only when these methods fail do they revert to the textbooks. It is not just youngsters who are using the technology to get instant answers but adults too. I can't remember the last time I looked up a book to source the information I am looking for. It is not just the electronic aspect that appeals to me but the now anytime. anywhere aspect the many of our mobile devices are offering. When travelling to work with my colleague, she drives, we have many discussions and many times questions arise that we don't have the answers to, rather than wait until we get to school I 'google' the question with my iPhone. If this does not work, depending on the nature of the question, I email or text someone who I know will respond fairly quickly.

Knowledge building through communities is not a new concept as humans have collaborated over the past centuries to achieve tasks that any one person could not achieve alone. In the world of business and education, in the past, the process of collective action was primarily a 'top down control structure' with management giving orders at the top and the floor workers working! This style was also the 'teaching of the past' style where the teacher is the 'manager' telling the children what they are going to learn with the children being the 'workers' where they produced the completed textbook tasks. This 'top down' approach to teaching is still evident in many schools today as it is secure, gets results and is in a comfort zone. There are also times when this approach is the best suited for the learning environment but is it the best for every lesson? Should children be subjected to didactic teaching the majority of their learning week?

The 'top down' model, in business, moved towards flatter organisational structures developing management information system (MIS) where everyone worked together to collate and store information. Although this system was more favourable than the 'top down' approach the end product was merely a collaborative database system. Nothing really wrong with that, look at wikipedia, the on-line collaborative encyclopedia which has a mass of information due to the collaborative efforts of many across boundaries. Where MIS approaches fall down is where data is churned in by individuals to create a vast database of information without acquiring any knowledge of the subject due to purely inputting information.

There are similarities to this approach in many of the aspects of schooling that children undertake, and I for one am guilty of this approach. Take for example how I used to teach children how to create an interactive map using Google Maps. Thinking I was doing well linking it to a context, the children either created an interactive map of Mark Beaumont's journey around the world or located where all the schools for our global project, Voices Of The World, were from.

On reflection of the MIS model where:

'Until information has been comprehended and interpreted to the point that it can be applied to a situation, it is not knowledge.'

This led me to re-address how I taught interactive maps with more looking at the locations in comparison to where we live and places we know on the map than simply searching information and placing placemarks on the map.

Learning and collaboration are not just about sharing information but about building communities that bind us together. In the project Voices Of The World, there are two sides to the coin: a sub-bread of the MIS system and COP (Community Of Practice) (Lave Wenger. 1991). The Voices Of The World area is the MIS system where schools have worked on a task that will be part of a global outcome in that their children's voices will represent their school and location from the world. This wikispace where the final products are hosted each month could be classes as an Internet page as their is no live collaboration happening on the site; it is just an area to share and display to the naked eye.

For those that manage to get past the 'show and display' aspect of the Voices Of The World wikispace, they will question how these schools manage to unite each month over time and space. This is where the COP comes into being through the teachers' network. Here you will find teachers collaborating, sharing and working together to unite our children together. The community is vibrant where 'learning how to learn is the price of entry into this knowledge-building community' where tools, activities and people constitute the three elements as defined by Activity Theory. These three elements are interdependent where a change to one affects the others, for example, when a new social media tool is introduced each month, participants need to learn and adjust to the new tools as they implement them into their new activity.

Finding the ties that bind is not always that easy. Take for example, a ning network I set up for teachers involved in bear exchanges with my school. This was created to enable the teachers to communicate and collaborate with one another. A place where I could hopefully answer many teachers' questions just once rather than privately in emails. A place to learn from one another and make more connections with other. If you look you will see this did not happen due to no leadership, no desire and no commitment. This community were not ready for this collaborative technology preferring to communicate through the closed walls of their emails as this is the technology that they are accustomed to. Children, on the other hand, have no problems with collaborative technologies and willing embrace it.

Sometimes if you believe something is worth building and the only way to be part is through the community you build the perseverance is all that is needed. The teachers' network for Voices Of The World started with 5 active participants and now has just under 60. Many teachers who joined initially communicated with me through email. However, through using the network to constantly place my communications to the community, the network is a vibrant area for like-minded educationalist to work together.

Radio Show - Successful Learners

A Curriculum For Excellence advocates that children should develop in the four capacities: successful learners, confident individuals, responsible citizens and effective contributors.

Creating a radio show with children addresses these four capacities with a heavy emphasis on 'successful learners' as detailed below:

Enthusiasm and motivation for learning: creating a radio show with children is an exciting medium to engage children in the learning process. By providing a goal, audience and purpose, children will become motivated to participate in a role that suits their learning style and capability.
Determination to reach high standards of achievement: providing an audience for a radio show, whether this be another class, whole school or a global audience, places importance on the standard that the children’s work must reach. Children want others to listen and praise their shows, they want people to come back and tune in again. This will only occur if their radio shows meet a specific standard.
Openess to new thinking and ideas: radio shows are not static they must adapt to news and events as they happen. Children need to be adaptable to their listeners’ needs. There is no point in doing the same show every week as listeners would soon tune out. To keep the show interesting children need to listen to each others ideas and also the views of their audience.
Use literacy, communication and numeracy skills: these three skills are addressed through the radio show in different aspects. Children develop their literacy skills as they create scripts for each show where different styles of writing are taking into consideration; informal for the DJS and formal for the news reporters. A radio show is all about communicating news, views and entertaining the listeners. Children have to learn how to use the tools to communicate and create a show that is not just a talking narrative but an entertaining auditory medium. Although numeracy skills are not as prominent as the other two skills, they are still apparent through the use of the technology where timing and percentages are important aspects as children edit recordings and work out specific timings of various parts of the show to ensure it stays within a specific time limit.
Use technology for learning: creating a radio show requires the use of various technologies from digital voice recorders, microphones, recording and editing software, music making software and Web 2.0 tools. Once the skills in using the various technology has been developed, the technology then becomes learning tools rather than technical ones.
Think creatively and independently: creativity is at the heart of a radio show. Children need to ‘create’ a show incorporating new ideas, music, interviews, questions etc… through taking on different roles. Withing these roles children may be required to work independently to create an aspect of the show where they will record and edit their contribution.
Learn independently and as part of a group: although children have individual roles to undertake, for example, DJ, news reporter, music maker etc… they are all working towards one goal: a collaborative radio show.
Make reasoned evaluations: the whole process of creating a radio show requires continual evaluation from discussion what aspects to include at the planning stage to which aspects to remove at the editing stage.
Link and apply different learning in new situations: there are many aspects of a radio show that enable new learning and skills to develop. Children can change roles with each show to develop new skills or can learn new concepts as the theme of each show changes. Radio shows are not static learning environments but active ones.

There Is No Stopping The Children In Greece!!!

Anna has worked quickly to get the next task complete - well done. You will see below that the children have used their won drawings alongside digital pictures - very inspiring. I am sure you will love the look of the end product and now you can imagine how it will look when I place them all together - but not yet.

Listen to Greece below:

October's Task

October's task introduces you to another tool on the internet that is visual and auditory. Animito will be used to create a visual presentation that is accompanied by the children singing their National Anthems.

There are some restrictions and some freedom in this project so you can decided how adventurous you want to be within the limitations.

The images can be created by the children by paper or electronically or the images can be taken using a camera of the surrounding area. If you feel you don't have time then save some images from the internet. The restricted part is that no more than 20 images can be used.

The audio can be song solo, as a group, as a class, accompanied or unaccompanied - you decide. The restriction is that you are only allowed 30 seconds and no more.

Before starting please read my email with instructions and enjoy the example I threw together below - the real one from the children should be even better!!!



Any questions then please feel free to give me a shout as always.



Voices Of The World Goes Live

Voices Of The World's first task is now available for the world to look and listen. It is amazing listening to all the voices say the same sentence in their own language. I have to say my favourite sound is the children from Greece who sound so sweet. I hope you all enjoyed this first task because I certainly enjoyed working with you all. Until next month's task. Sharon

Voices Of The World Ning

Just a gentle reminder that this network is for the teachers involved in VOTW and not for the children.



I am currently working on the children's area with all our completed vokis. The plan is to diplay all the vokis in one area - wikispace. I am then going to take all the audio from each voki and create a podcast so that it is like a show. I can do this for everyone this month as each file is very small but in later tasks there may be an element of only selecting specific voices for the podcast but still displaying the main task.



Just a wee bit background on the project, i initally created VOTW as an E-twinning project to unite voices around the world. to make it the world I need to branch out of Europe hence why all you lovely teachers are involved.



Because the site is popular I have to adapt to the interest and realise that some of my inital ideas might not be feasible anymore due to the size as it would not be interesting to the children to listen to a podcast that lasts over an hour. When using different voices and languages children need to be kept focussed and entertained.



To do this I will incorporate a different piece of software each month that you can use from the internet so that not only are the children participating in a global project using their voice they are also learning new ICT skills and hopefully some teachers too.



Briefly, the next themes are National Anthem, Nursery Rhyme, Jingle Bells, Hopes For The Future etc. All these will be in the child's language but this should not present a barrier to understanding as the children have already completed the task and know understand the concept.



The power of the voice and sound are amazing tools if used in a structured environment.



I hope this answers some questions and puts the project into a perspective. Sharon

Vocies Of The World

Our task for September is to create a voki (an animated character with sound).


Get a Voki now!


To complete this project you need:

* Computer and Internet connection;

* Computer microphone;

* Eager child, children or class.


What to say in your own language:

'Hello, we are from (school) in (country) and you are listening to Voices Of The World.'

If you have not used a voki before then watch the voki video on this page to get you started. If you have any problems or questions then please do hesitate to contact me.

Each voki must be ready for the 26th September 2007 in time to be published on VOTW blog and wiki for Friday 28th September 2007.

The end product will be a display of all the vokis representing each country alongside one podcast that joins all the voices from each voki into one track - sounding good so far?
 
 

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