Virtual Learning Network

Heather

Try

Http://freemusicarchive.org 

There are thousands of free tracks organised by genre for your students to freely use with attribution

David

Roimata,

Depending on the kind of animation you want to do I would recommend:

http://www.pencil-animation.org/ it is an open source 2D animation software, its free and is fairly easy to use.  What you will find is it will take time.

If you have iPads in the class I would suggest that you use the Puppet Pals HD (Directors Edition) to make short movies, not really animation, but quicker to make than a traditional animation.

If you want to do stop frame animation, you will need a good tripod, a good light source and time. I would recommend that you install Sam Animation http://icreatetoeducate.com/  You can do this with LEGO pieces as the students I worked with in this film did http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-iSzff-iXAY Here is the students final work http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cd7uYLdrlY  or you could do traditional claymation.  The key factor for all of these solutions is giving the students time to create and execute their animation.

Let me know how you get on.  Good luck.

David

Rebecca,

Moodle allows you to link to .swf files so why convert? You can upgrade from free to premium in Jing and then output AVI and therefore YouTube friendly video format. I use captivate for the interactive tutorials that are available via my site.  It is a fantastic tool.  Happy to create the videos for you if you want?  Have just done a suite of 11 tutorials for a client all loaded onto their Moodle site to teach staff how to use Moodle, plus loads of software tutorials for other clients, they love them.  Just let me know.

Sam,

I would look at the Aerohive option.  This system is modular in nature which would enable you to plan an expanding programme of implementation as your BYOD strategy comes on line and grows.

My understanding is that the intelligent system balances loads so as not to create performance drops as you indicate, all without the need for a controller on the server.  The unit prices are cheap, but I believe that there is an annual subscription fee, which ties you into a continual overhead for years to come, but mitigates the need for a large up front investment. Therefore in the medium to long term it may cost more, but at least you get the performance you want now and into the future with a modular system.

Worth a look I think.

David

dakinane limited

This is why digital citizenship is so important.  It is as important that we educate the parents about the life online that their children are going to live for the next 80 years.  We as educators have a digital citizenship responsiblity/role to ensure that we put in place procedures/practices in our schools that do not indavertently 'over share' identity information that is not relevant to learning.  The bigger question is why do we feel the need to identify children in photos/videos?  When the audience for their work already know who the children are, after all they named them!

I would suggest you use Evernote for all of them.  That way there is no issue with compatibility.

Carolyn, please send me their @usernames on twitter and I will follow them, I just need to spend time trawling Twitter to add them to the list, so all names gratefully accepted!

Thanks.

David

It is the power to connect and share such rich information in 140 characters that gives Twitter its PLN power.  Just by joining and then lurking (watching and reading what others have to say) opens up a world of information to a busy Principal. I have started to compile a list of Principals who use Twitter, you can follow what they have to say here

http://twitter.com/#!/dakinane/principals/members

Twitter gets a bad press from the banality of what is said. If you follow the right people and dip in and out using tools such as http://tweetdeck.com to curate twitter content, then the 5 minutes a day needed to keep abreast of trends and opinions in education will be well spent and will be extremely informative.