Legend+project

media type="custom" key="7562063"

**VoiceThread**

__**What is it?**__

VoiceThread is an online collaborative tool that handles images, documents and video and allows people to comment on the prepared with this tool presentations using voice, text, audio or video. It supports PDF, Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint and enables users to import photos from the web (eg., Flickr, Facebook ). Users can doodle while commenting, use multiple identities. Creators of Voicethreads can decide themselves which comments are shown through moderation options. It can be easily embedded into a webside and even into Moodle. It's secure- participants of a VoiceThread project are added by its creator, so only they can contribute to the work being done. Presentations can be shared with the whole world or just among the group members.

__**How to use in your projects?**__

-It can help participants of the international projects to get to know each other better as it enables them to combine photographs or other visuals with written or audio comments. Teachers start by introducing themselves and invite students to talk about their lives etc.

-It can be used for practicing pronunciation of words as well as vocabulary and structures that students need for their projects. In that case, teacher records the words/phrases and students listen and record these words as well. It can be also used for the preparation of an audio 'dictionary' with pictures.

-It can provide an introduction into the topic and encouragement for students to start their research

-Students can record their own voices when telling a story, collaboratively doing research or sharing their opinions about a certain issue. They may also comment on their colleagues' work or just leave messages for their partners living far away from them.

**__Pedagogical value__**

It's a multimedia tool that enables interaction between the student and the material, the student and his/ her projec partners as well as the student and the teacher. It's easy to operate, free of charge and its attractive, as it gives lots of options for its users. It enables those students who are shy to take a more active part in a project. :

Assignment 1

OUTLINE of the Project //** Different countries- different stories **//

Goals: -to get to know each country’s legendary traditions -improve English lg and ICT skills -foster collaboration -develop imagination - increase awareness of other cultures and promote toleration

Age: each country is represented by a group of children who are 5-9 and a group of students who are 10-13, preferably (but not necessarily) from the same school or district to enable contacts in person. With some modifications, the project can also be run for the students of the same age group (the age of our students determined our choice for this particular project)

Plan of the project Month 1 Registration of students in Twinspace; creation of their accounts: - older SS introduce themselves writing about favourite things, likes/dislikes and their appearance; SS draw pictures of their partners using the information in their partners’ profiles for their partners to guess whom each of the pictures represent. -younger SS upload pictures for avatars, put into their profiles links to the project (external) wiki /blog, where their drawings, prepared with Sketchfu/TuxPaint (of what they like /dislike, their favourite toys, heroes), are uploaded. Students are invited (but not forced) to create a speaking avatar using Voki, these are put on the external wiki. 2 Twinspace Forums - one for older and one for younger kids- are created. Participants say hello to each other there and are encouraged to communicate through the setting of different Forum threads. Older SS do that in writing, younger -using emoticons or/and some words (like Great/Brilliant/Fantastic/ Me too etc), they may put links to their drawings, their works done with SlidShare, Smilebox, messages recorded via VoiceThread. Any informal conversations are encouraged - the topics are chosen by the SS in that case.

<span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman,serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 2; text-decoration: none; widows: 2;">Month 2 <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman,serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 2; text-decoration: none; widows: 2;">Teachers from the same countries collaborate to choose several national legends/fairy tales; older SS are divided into groups, each of them working on 1 legend. They are given key words, so that they could find the legends themselves [ using on-line Search engines]. The members of each group collaborate to retell the legends in simple words in their mother tongue, using wiki for writing them down and VoiceThread for the recording of the narrative. They prepare pictures for each part of the narrative. <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman,serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 2; text-decoration: none; widows: 2;">Yonger students listen to the VoiceThread recordings of the legends produced by the older students from their country (or they are told the legends either by their teacher or the older students, who come to visit them). Kids with their teachers (and with the help of the older students from the same school, if possible) prepare a scenario (using VoiceThread for its recording) for a chosen story (stories), for declamation or acting out in the future (in their mother tongue).

<span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman,serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 2; text-decoration: none; widows: 2;">Month 3 <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman,serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 2; text-decoration: none; widows: 2;">Younger students practise telling the legend(s), produce the final recording of them using VoiceThread ( in the form of dialogue, and simple sentences for a narrator) and draw pictures for each scene (Sketchfu/TuxPaint). They produce a VoiceThread presentation of their story in their mother tongue (matching recordings and pictures they’ve produced earlier). Alternatively, they prepare masks and costumes and photograph or videorecord a legend/legends of their choice. <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman,serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;">Older students retell their stories in English using Wiki and Audacity. If students have pronunciation problems they may use text to speech converter: [|__http://www.abc2mp3.com/__]<span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman,serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;">. <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman,serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 2; text-decoration: none; widows: 2;">Students share links to the work they’re doing through the Twinspace Blog or Forum. They’re encouraged to comunicate through the setting of different Forum threads (like why I like/dislike a particular legend, a character, which works done on the project they like most, asking others for advice how to improve their work etc).Younger students put links to their works, put emoticons for commenting; those who can write, write simple messages.

<span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman,serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 2; text-decoration: none; widows: 2;">Month 4 <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman,serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 2; text-decoration: none; widows: 2;">Older students (in their groups) produce a bilingual dictionary for their story. Each of the group exchanges its dictionary with a group from another country to translate the phrases from the dictionary into their language, thus producing a trilingual dictionary for each legend, to be published with the legend later. <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman,serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 2; text-decoration: none; widows: 2;">Older students record some vocabulary (in English and their mother tongue) used in their partners’ stories (taken from the dictionary) using VoiceThread; younger kids listen to the recording and produce pictures to illustrate the recordings.The Presentations are put together to make a kind of bilingual audio dictionary with pictures (Tool VoiceThread).

<span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman,serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 2; text-decoration: none; widows: 2;">Month 5 <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman,serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 2; text-decoration: none; widows: 2;">Older students exchange Audacity recordings (in English) and pictures with their partners from the other country, who have to put the recording and pictures (which they choose from a wide range of pictures given to them) together, publishing a book (Book Builder). Younger children watch the VoiceThread presentations prepared by their peers from the other country and guess what the legends are about. They record simple messages in English for their peers praising their work ( using VoiceThread).

<span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman,serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 2; text-decoration: none; widows: 2;">Month 6 <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman,serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 2; text-decoration: none; widows: 2;">Students (in groups) decide on their favourite legend from the partner country and prepare a presentation/presentations about that legend using an IT tool of their choice (from Glog to a cartoon). They put their presentation in the Twinspace and publish them on the external wiki/blog. Students comment on the presentations using Forum

<span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman,serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 2; text-decoration: none; widows: 2;">Month 7 <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman,serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 2; text-decoration: none; widows: 2;">Students test each other’s knowledge on the presented legends using quizzes, crosswords, puzzles etc. [Tools: Hotpotatoes & Mystudiyo for quizzes and crosswords] <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman,serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 2; text-decoration: none; widows: 2;">They turn some of the drawings for their legends into a puzzle/board game and send it to the partner school. [Tools: Sketchfu to have fun with drawing, Jigzone puzzles to create a puzzle on their drawings or alternatively GameMaker to turn it into a game]

<span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman,serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 2; text-decoration: none; widows: 2;">Month 8 <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman,serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 2; text-decoration: none; widows: 2;">SS say what they liked about the project and what they learned to do using Forum; they also say goodbye and wish each other good luck.