Desert Living

Desert Living
It's Hot in Saudi

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

BP_2_Xtranormal

Ok,

I had one of those inspiring moments while I was trapped under my bed yesterday. My epiphanies usually happen in the shower; however, yesterday I was so disgusted looking at the luggage and all the things that were still littering my 400 square-foot hovel, that I had to unpack and clean-up my act.  I think we learned something in month two about cluttered environs and their effect on easily clutterable minds.  I'm just saying.
Something that I brought back to make effective use of my limited space were some of those bed risers. My bed sits in a little inset in the wall no wider than the bed itself.  To say it is wedged into a hard place is putting it lightly.   In hindsight it was perhaps not the best idea to crawl under my bed wedged between two walls in order to place the two risers under the front legs of the bed only to have to wriggle out with the full weight of the bed on my back. About half-way to freedom, I thought, "By Jove, I've got it! I will use an avatar to teach my class!"
I decided to use xtranormal to create two "calendar leaders" to help my kids remember all the things that they are to do as part of the morning calendar routine.  There are still some little quirks that need to be worked out.  I could certainly add more animation but my class was really excited to have two robots instead of their teacher leading the class.  The program is easy to use and lends itself to a number of presentation applications.  I can't wait to get my little ones making movies of their own!

As my kids don't actually read and write with acumen yet, I could see type-to-text taking a great deal of time.  Perhaps someone knows of a program I could use that records their words for use in this way?

2 comments:

  1. What a great story - the visual imagery was priceless! Isn't it amazing how and where inspiration strikes? I guess what matters is that it happens and we are able to recognize it when it does. Have fun with those robots!

    Jude

    ReplyDelete
  2. I love how you've created your own pedagogical coaches to use in your classroom. It really seems like your students are loving them (as evidenced in the last scene). It's great to see that Xtranormal has made some changes since I last used it. I would love to see how you incorporate the robots in later lessons.

    ReplyDelete