Catherine Elliott on stop-motion animation, web 2.0, the iPad and primary languages

Download Interview_with_Catherine_Elliott.mp3

Last week, I had the pleasure of speaking to Catherine Elliott, the training manager at Sheffield South City Learning Centre about all the wonderful ways she has been using technology to channel pupils' creativity in primary languages.

A former secondary MFL teacher herself, Catherine has been running a successful summer school for pupils aged 9-11 for the last two years and has been encouraging them to practise their beginners' Spanish and French by making animations, video clips, multimedia posters, cartoons and professional-looking slideshows, then publishing them on a blog.

This year, pupils were lucky enough to be able to trial a set of 10 iPads the CLC had recently purchased and test run apps such as Doodle Buddy, Strip Designer, Make a Martian, Moodboard Lite, Collins French Dictionary and i-Prompt Pro in small collaborative groups. Examples of what they produced can be found below.

During the recording, Catherine kindly explains how she structures each activity and the tools that she uses, most of which are free or inexpensive. Her tips on animation are particularly interesting such as keeping to the 12 frame per second rule and using onion-skinning to create a smooth movement effect.

If you haven't seen it already have a look at her great animation about how to animate on the South Sheffield CLC blog. It's a true delight! Check out too the recent Teacher's TV programme on the same topic for some more tips and tricks.

I liked the way Catherine expressed her pupils' enthusiasm for having their work published to a real audience and her suggestions on ensuring they do so safely by giving them Spanish or French names and changing the pitch of their voices in Audacity before publishing their Vokis.

Catherine is now investigating the potential of mindmapping app Idea Sketch and UNESCO photo sharing app Heritage for the iPad. She could have a look at History Pin too which is a nice site for comparing scenic photos from the past with their modern day equivalents. A good vehicule for practising tenses potentially.

If this isn't impressive enough, Catherine is going to run another three day summer school next year but in German this time which she does admit is her first foreign language. In the meantime, her plans include setting up a collaborative blog for two secondary schools taking part in a German exchange and letting them experiment with I-GotU GPS trackers on a field trip to York as part of a Google Maps project. GPS Mission could be worth exploring too for this.

It was fascinating talking to Catherine about all her innovative approaches towards language learning and I hope you enjoy listening back to her fabulous ideas too. Thank you.

Comments

[Colintgraham]

Hi Joe
I was just wondering why you suggested changing pitch of voice using audacity. Voki has a range of effects, such as chipmunk, speedy, reverb, etc. which can be added by clicking on the FX tab under the "Give it a voice" menu once you choose the input method - that would seem to be easier unless you wanted an excuse to use audacity too!
Colin

[Joe Dale]

Hi Colin,

You're absolutely right although I'd recommend recording in Audacity anyway as you can edit your speech which will help you to remember it and also I find enabling the microphone to record straight into Voki can be problematic (error messages etc. Personally, I prefer the voice effects you can produce in Audacity too.

[Catherine Elliott]

Hi Colin,

I used Audacity primarily to edit out unwanted sections of audio, and whilst they were there they could change pitch. Will try out the FX in Voki at some point though,
Cheers,
Catherine

[Aaron Griffin]

Hello Joe,
My name is Aaron Griffin and I am with Dr. John Strange's EDM 310 class at The University of South Alabama, and we are learning about all the inovative ways that technology can be used in todays classroom. I have seen some wonderful ideas regarding your latest post. Using ipads for language comprehension is a very creative way of educating. This is just another form of using technology in the classroom for the future success of students. Thank You for your ideas!

[Carrie Tucker]

Hi Joe,
My name is Carrie Tucker and I am a student at the University of South Alabama. This semester I am in Dr. Strange's Educational Media class (EDM 310) and I have learned many new ways to incorporate technology into education. Through this blog and watching the videos I realized that technology can actually aid in every subject. The ideas were very creative avenues to learn and use these different languages in a fun, unique way rather than the traditional ways. Using the ipad, apps, doodle buddy, etc, are all great ways to keep students engaged and interested in learning. Thanks for sharing the various ways that technology can be used in the classroom.

[Courtney Muse]

Hi Joe,
My name is Courtney Muse and I am a student at the University of South Alabama. I am in Dr. Strange's EDM 310 class. We are already into week six and I have learned many ideas about education. This really sticks out to me because it could not only be used in the classroom but it could be also carried over into homes. This is a great learning tool to use with very young children at home. I wish this could have been a tool in many of our foreign language classes throughout my education. This is a great idea and I hope that this concept reaches teachers across the world!