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

LTschang

VOTW 2009-2010 - Is it running? 10 Replies

Started by LTschang. Last reply by Kairi Laane Feb 2.

shirley campbell-morgan

New Tasks 2 Replies

Started by shirley campbell-morgan. Last reply by Jean Nov. 19, 2009.

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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 May 14, 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 May 13, 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 March 31, 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 March 20, 2009 at 7:00am — 1 Comment

Tecnoteach

Individualisation On Collaborative Walls


Wallwisher is not a new kid on the block with many educators using this tool to enable children to let their individual thoughts or knowledge be shared amongst the many.  The potential for using this tool in schools, where it is not blocked, is huge due to the open nature of the product: it is not just one thing it can be many.  This is exemplified through the various suggestions educators have come up with below:

Ways to use Wallwisher in Education:

16 Ways To Use A Wall

Ideas from the crowd

Tom Barrett's Crowd Source Ideas

It is fine to come up with wonderful ways to embed various technology into the learning environment however, what do children think about using Wallwisher?  One teacher, Mrs Brownsword, undertook a little research to ascertain what her children thought of this tool for learning.  Most thought it was fun and easy with few seeing the collaborative aspect of it.  This could be due to the fact they created their own stickies and did not view the whole process but the individual one.  Sometimes when working collaboratively technology might actually stop this process from occurring due to children contributing to a product from individual machines or at different times and places.  Although I advocate that children should not all be around one machine with only one hand on the mouse and the rest of the group observing but using collaborative tools like Google Docs,  PrimaryPad or Mindmeister, the individual's contribution to the whole must be made clear to ensure children know they are working collaboratively or as Johnson and Jonson (1990) state cooperatively.

Cooperative learning, according to Murdoch and Wilson (2004), is where children are working towards a shared goal and this shared goal must be made explicit at the start.  This notion that children must know what is expected of them is further exemplified by Johnston and Jonson (1990) to enable effective cooperative learning.  Working cooperatively is not just a simply matter of placing children in groups but consideration should be taken into some of the five key elements of cooperative learning as identified by Johnson et al (1998):

* Positive Interdependence;
* Individual Accountability;
* Face-to-face Interaction;
* Interpersonal and Small Group Skills;
* Group Processing.

Positive Interdependence: children need to work together to reach a shared goal where 'each student is not only required to complete their part of the work, but ensure that others do likewise' (Gillies & Ashmand, 2003: 35).

Individual Accountability: Each member is accountable for their own work and how it contributes to the whole.

Face-to-face Interaction: enables effective communication and supports thinking skills.

Interpersonal and Small Group Skills: children must learn to work together as a group to develop social skills which 'pupils do not come to school with the social skills they need to collaborate effectively with others'  (Jolliffe, 2007: 92).

Group Processing: time to reflect on how the group worked is required to ensure that the skills of cooperative learning can be developed further.

Working collaboratively with others, over time and place, using technology is a key skill that our young children must develop to enable them to survive their globalised futures.  Using technology may not hit the five key elements suggested above exactly but have strands of the elements permeating through the process.  the only element that may be questioned would be the face-to-face Interaction where some collaborative applications do not allow this.  However, tools like  Google Docs and PrimaryPad allow students to use the chat area to clarify their thoughts and brainstorm whilst the main area is used to create the product.  The importance of collaboration is emphasised in one of the four capacities, successful learners, of Scotland's CfE as shown in the image below:



The benefits of Wallwisher and its use in education are apparent from the links above where different curricular areas are addressed.  However, allowing the individual's voice heard in the crowd was my main focus for implementing this tool into a lecture setting with student teachers.  All too often students are lectured to at University where the knowledgeable one, the lecturer, imparts their knowledge to the unacknowledged, the student.  Timely questions are asked with only 5 % of students answering 95 % of the questions.  The same ones put their hands up each lecture and the same ones shy away and allow others to talk.  When I asked students why this was the response was that the did not like speaking out to such a large audience, frightened they would say the wrong thing or simply were quite happy to listen.  Finding ways to engage all students in inputs was one of the main challenges I faced when I came to University as I was used to engaging primary children in the learning environment but they were not all sitting in rows with over one hundred others watching the sage on the stage.

One way to engage the mass of students was through using their handheld devices.  Text me questions or answers rather than the one hand one voice method.  Respond to questions by voting or textual replies using handheld devices and the online tool Polleverywhere.  Wallwisher was the next tool that appeared to have the potential to enable interaction during lecture where all voices could be heard.  To test the waters, I created various walls with questions that I wished to ask a small group of students during an ICT input:

What will the future of education be in ten year's time?

What they hoped to learn in the ICT module.

What social media tools they currently used.

What are the educational benefits of handheld learning?

Each of these questions were asked throughout the input to break up the monotony of listening to my voice, involve all students in the responses and to record their thoughts.  This was undertaken in an ICT suite which worked well with the only problem being the stickies overlapping.  It was only until later that I realised the creator of the page is the only one who could move the stickies around not all the contributors.  Minor aspect to an otherwise excellent tool.

The next step is how to incorporate this tool with a larger body of students and possibly in a lecture theatre.  I decided to test Wallwisher on the iPhone to ascertain if it could be used.  It became clear there are limitations to using Wallwisher this way:

1.  You can not create a sticky;

2.  You can not close a link down;

3.  You can add an link;

4.  You can add text to a stiky already created.

Barriers are just creative hurdles that make your mind think innovatively. It is still possible to use Wallwisher with handheld devices.  I created an account with Wallwisher for my students, Individualisation, where all students will use the same username and password when working collaboratively.  There are two advantages to this: all children are in one account and the teacher does not need to create many accounts and deal with children forgetting passwords and the settings can be set so that only the account user's can edit the wall for security purposes.  With an account create stickies are created  beforehand with no text in them.  Group names or student's names can be added to each sticky and when the student opens the page with their handheld device they are able to enter text in the sticky assigned to them.  It is therefore possible to let everyone's voices be heard on collaborative walls.

What Can Student Teachers Do When On Placement?




All too often when I teach student primary teachers ways to use Web 2.0 tools the first question they ask is, 'Can I use this application in schools or is it blocked?'.  Most of the time I do not have the answer as the application maybe new or is not getting used in schools by many.  Although I try to give the students a balance between what they can use and what they will hopefully be able to embed in their future practice, it can be frustrating for them to go through four years not being able to implement current technologies.  Living in the past is not what our future primary teachers are trained to be, they are the ones who will teach the future generation and they should be able to access tools that enable collaboration, innovation etc...

So to answer their question, 'Can I use this application in schools?', and to hopefully help myself and others who provide training to practitioners out with our own geographical location, I posted a tweet on Twitter asking the 'crowd' if Wallwisher was blocked in their Local Authority.  Most replies say it is not with some having the problem of their computers still running on IE6 which will not support Wallwisher.

With the information provided from fellow teachers I decided to be more organised and create a shared Google Doc - ICT in Schools to collate this information and hopefully build a depository of what can and can't be used in schools, primarily in Scotland, however, the rest of the UK and elsewhere would be interesting to know too.  Is it only certain areas that are blocking or allowing children access to the tools they can access at home?

I would be grateful if you could help me providing me with information regarding what is blocked or not blocked for Wallwisher, Twitter, Voki, Wordle, Youtube and Delicious.  More applications will be added over time, however, this will get the ball rolling.

To access the collaborative document go to ICT in School.

Find your Local Authority (all are in for Scotland) or type in your Authority/ Location in the appropriate row. Use the numbers suggested on the form to state: 0 - blocked, 1 - only teacher access and 2 - access for all.


Over the next few months I will collate this data and create a report which I will share will the global community.  Thanks in advance for your help in preparing our student teachers for 'on the job' teaching and for helping others be prepared for presenting workshops in other places around the world.

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?
 
 

Voices Of The World Is About To Commence

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Latest Activity

Hei Sharon and everyone! We are definately in! Greetings from very snowy Estonia :)
February 2
We would love to participate!
January 30
I'd love to participate again this year.
January 30
Barbara Bashour updated their profile
January 29
Barbara Bashour updated their profile photo
January 29
January 29
Count us in!
January 29
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