The iTunes store describes Thicket as “an audiovisual
playground that allows anyone to create beautiful sounds and pictures from
simple finger touches.” It functions a
s an expandable interactive art platform.
Basically, you use fingertip touch to create art in real time that is accompanied by music produced by your touch. Each mode creates its own abstract visual
melody. No two interactive art experiences can be the same.
The user can just enjoy the playground or the app offers an
option to take snapshots. After a bit, I was able to create and capture the
images with some intention. It was definitely an act that resembled dancing as
I attempted to produce the image that left enough time to release my touch to hit the
photo icon and capture my intended vision.
When taking snapshots, users aren’t able to over-control the process of capturing
the abstract image. Despite the user’s best efforts, a level of spontaneous
interaction between the platform and user will always be captured.
The app is available in apple and android products and is
free. It comes with one music/artmaking mode. Other modes can purchased for a
mere 99 cents. New modes are released monthly. Each mode has its own music and
abstract style.
Practical Application
I kept wondering what to do with the images? How could they be
used in the ESL classroom? How could I integrate this app into my curriculum?
It didn’t take long into my app review/playing/getting lost
before I realized that the images just weren’t going to be enough. Although Thicket
is seriously cool, it wasn’t an application that could be useful to my students
in the long run – on its own.
I started to wonder how to create an interaction between
words, the abstract images, and music… how to produce a multimedia montage of
some sort. And that is when it hit me: I needed an app mash-up!
So, I got set on producing a multimedia montage using the
images produced on Thicket.
Enter Animoto
I downloaded Animoto. This app was totted as the easiest way
to create the most extraordinary videos of your life using music, video clips,
and photos. I was in!
Animoto is fairly easy to use and the interface is
straightforward. You select the media that you want to use. Next, you select the
style and music from a menu provided you. After that, you can add any text and
finally, preview, and publish.
I never did figure out how to rearrange the images and text.
The app just seems to take the media in order that it is selected and next goes
the text, at the end – except for the title page.
Further investigation will probably reveal… breaking news! I
just figured it out. On an iPhone, hold down until the picture icon enlarges and
then, you can move the photo. The text box does stay at the end of the video.
So, there is no intermixing text and media in the cheap (free) version.
Sharing the video took some time to figure out. I had to
signup with Vimeo, if I wanted to download, and not just share it via Facebook
or as a link in an email. Perhaps, the sharing issue is made easier by upgrading.
The results… see below… was a fun multimedia montage
that would allow students to express themselves in a pretty exciting way.
In the end, I think that I would keep looking for another,
more flexible low-cost app for the students before actually assigning a project
similar to this one. I think that there were too many kinks and would want an
app that allows more interaction between text, image, and music.
SPOILER ALERT: Totally forget the "t" in abstraction... and I am not going back to fix... nope. No siree! It is darn fine the way it is.
And it has a political message: Mrs. Jones get into 2013 or you have a mutiny on your hands!
The lite version is free and available to all PDIs. There
are upgrades available to go Plus ($5/month) or Pro ($39/month).
According Larry Rosen’s Rewired:
Understanding the iGeneration and the Way They Learn (2010), asking
students – who were raised with technology as digital natives of the
iGeneration- to do one task at a time (Unitask)
is not only torture, but research shows that their performance actually
decreases.
These students are so wired, so socially and digitally
interconnected, that Rosen (2010) argues their learning circuits are rewired:
they learn differently. And just as they move through their daily lives
collaboratively through an assortment of portable devices (PDIs) and social
networking, Rosen (2010) states that “research does demonstrate rather convincingly that students who
communicate during a learning experience perform equally well as those who read
the material and have no outside communication— it just takes them longer to
finish the assignment" (p. 67). These students are rewired as multitaskers.
There are some teachers under the thumb of standardized
testing that might scoff at Rosen’s flippancy of “just” taking longer to finish
assignments, but I am not one of them. I am lucky enough to have the flexibility
of my curriculum, as well as the material my university level students cover.
As stated in earlier blogs, I am starting to introduce
mobile learning (mLearning) concepts into my English as a second language (ESL)
classrooms; Facebook acts as catchall virtual classroom, while writing
assignments using mind mapping apps (Mindmapper), presentations produced as
videos using a mash-up of apps, blogs (Google Chrome Blogger), and
collaborative brainstorming using a virtual bricolage app (Mural.ly) are all on
this semester’s menu.
Students work to navigate visual literacy as they explore
the English language as an object that can be manipulated through technology
and creativity. Language isn’t something that just gets stuck in their throat
when they try to answer an instructor’s question or collects dust in their
English books that live stuffed in their backpacks.
The introduction of mLearning transforms English into
something that they can create in-between texting their girlfriends and
ignoring their Mom’s incessant questioning about when they are going to do
their chores.
5 Concept of mLearning
Rosen’s (2010) five important concepts of mLearning are:
Information is available anywhere there is
Internet access.
Information is available anytime.
Information is available through devises
that are becoming commonplace and will soon be affordable to most people.
Information can be “pushed” from the
environment to the student and “pulled” by the student from the environment.
The learning environment is fluid and adapts
as the learner learns.
Mobile Virtual Learning Environments (MVLE) in action...
mLearning concepts –if watered daily and fertilized well- can
grow up to become Mobile Virtual Learning Environments (MVLEs).
Now, my classroom social landscape is only in the infancy
stages of MVLEs and might never reach full maturation… but here are some of the
baby steps are we (my students and me) working out…
1. Engaging
environments: “A key to an MVLE is that any virtual educational experience
must be adaptable to whatever environment… is currently embraced by students”
(Rosen, 2010, p. 64).
We use Facebook. Each class has their own private class
group that only they can see and share. I post the class PowerPoints, the
syllabus, study guides, announcements, and send messages/reminders to the
students. They post homework assignments especially designed to be Facebook
posts on the class timeline (more on this later).
2. Environmental
flexibility:“A virtual learning environment can utilize any available
technology to teach a concept” (Rosen, 2010, p. 65).
Although my MVLE is still in level 1 yoga class, my students
are going to explore a few different apps and resources this semester. Here is
an example of the “Family Mind Map” project that my low level ESL university
freshman students are currently working on (due next week):
My "Family Mind Map" homework Facebook post
on the class timeline.
This project replaced the traditional “make your family
tree” – ever a favorite of rerun of ESL teachers everywhere.
3. Relevant learning
strategies: “Educators need to recognize that even though a book may employ
specific learning strategies that have been researched and proven effective,
they may not be effective for each and every student” (Rosen, 2010, p. 65).
Rosen (2010) goes on to claim that MVLE can be a
“strategy-independent” learning zone where students pick up and discard a
variety of research-approved methods until they find the mLearning strategies
that fit them like a pair of skinny jeans.
The "Family Mind Map" created on the computer
version of the free Mindmapper app.
Admittedly, I don’t know if I am giving the students enough
of a variety of virtual tools to really provide them with a plethora of
options, but I’ve gotten them out of the book. Rote learning and memorization
is not the pivot by which our classroom revolves.
4. Material
interactivity: “The tools have to allow students to work actively with the
material rather than have a static “book learning” experience” (Rosen, 2010, p.
65).
I consider our book only the launching point from which we
explore the MVLE that is designed to produce creative reactions by the students
in English.
5. Human
interactivity: “Learning can no longer be individualized to one working
alone” (Rosen, 2010, p. 65).
I don’t have a single activity in the real-world classroom
that my students do alone. Interestingly enough, I do actually assign their MLVE
homework individually, but they are always posting it to the class collective Facebook
site. Their homework for next week is to start asking each other questions
about their “Family Mind Map” to promote the same sense of interconnectivity in
the MLVE as we have in classroom.
6. Student-centered
versus the standard teacher-centered education models.
Most of work done by my students in the MLVE takes
initiative as the book can only be used as reference and launching point.
Otherwise, they are responsible for generating the materials to produce the
Facebook timeline posts.
They are inspired to work together and to do more research
on the internet.
Introductory profile
assignment.
7. Collaborative: see
#5.
8. Creative:“The
opportunity for creative exercises within a learning domain heightens interest
in the subject, motivates the learner to continue with the educational process,
and results in increased levels of understanding” (Rosen, 2010, p. 68).
The students not only have to produce the language that goes
into their projects, they also have to form and produce the project itself.
They can’t just scribble haphazard sentences on a piece of paper and hand it in
on the fly. The students have to interact with the virtual interface while
thinking through all the pieces to complete the Facebook post correctly. They
have to generate pictures and describe them. They are assigned with telling a
visual story as well as written one.
In our MVLE, learning is a creative process just as language
and communication are a creative process.
9. Available 24/7: “Education
can no longer be seen as something that happens between 7:30 A.M. and 2:30
P.M., Monday through Friday, with afternoons and evenings for homework” (Rosen,
2010, p. 69).
I personally have the sleep/work pattern of teenager. I’ve
been known to respond to students’ questions at midnight or have started asking
them questions on their profiles to find myself accidentally in chats with
several of students, because I was on during prime social networking time
(after 10 pm).
Available 24/7.
The result of all that MVLE?
This is the first semester that I’ve introduced so much mLearning
into my classroom social landscape… and my Freshman students have a near
perfect attendance rate going into week 4 of classes. That is unheard of.
My advanced conversation class, who are studying a content-based
survey course on critical analysis of visual literacy, have opted to do the
extra work to master the material that is proving difficult for them. The more
that I transform the class into a MVLE – the more breakthroughs that we are
having with the material. The trust is now established between us and we are heading
into the world of collaborative blogging and Mural.ly brainstorming.
So, I will check back with you in a few weeks to see if they
are still hanging tough.
With my commitment to meaning-making language education
comes my cross to bear: I am labeled.
Yes, I am the “artsy” English as a Foreign Language (EFL)
instructor at my higher education institution. Art, in this case, is mistaken
for poster making by my unenlightened colleagues; aesthetic teaching methods
reduced down to the redheaded stepchild of “real” academics and legitimate
language instruction.
There is a misconception that art-based methods are less
rigorous and/or effective than focusing on correcting student errors and
teaching them language/grammar points. (Side note: I most certainly don’t
advocate for only having one style of teaching. Students need good instruction
on the structure and form of English by instructors who get it. They just also
need the balance of instruction based on the creative process of
communication.)
My teaching methods admittedly privilege meaning-making over
language rules and form. I seek to engage my students in authentic experiences
where learners use their creative process to communicate meaningfully in their
new language (Chappell and Faltis, 2013). Our (my students and me) classes are
dedicated to, not only giving them the tools for creative communication, but
providing them opportunities to get dirty using them, as well.
The Re-mix: focusing
on the student’s interlanguage
In my last post, remixing and the mash-up were introduced as
a natural creative process that human’s use to adapt to an ever-changing
environment. I believe an effective language classroom is a microcosm of these
bigger mash-ups of life; as students engage in their language-learning environment
in creative ways, their perception begins to evolve and morph as they decode
the English language/world. Therefore, they need strategies on processing this
experience outside of just verbal and written communication.
The creative process as the bridge
between interlanguage and
language production.
A students’ internal ‘interlanguage’ is the mash-up that my
teaching methods focus on bringing to the surface. Chappell and Faltis (2013)
summarizes Selinker’s (1972) definition of a student’s ‘interlanguage’ as “an
internal system of language constructed by the learner, based on cognitive and
linguistic interactions between the first and second language, coupled with how
the learner experienced learning” (p. 8).
In an active and engaging learning environment, students’
are working from a continuous remixing as they learn to engage in
meaning-making activities and therefore, their production of language in this
environment are inherently mash-ups, in every sense of the word (even once
they’ve become fluent whether error-free or not).
My goal is to get my
students’ mash-up (interlanguage) from the inside out. I want to give my students
the tools and strategies to creatively explore remixing and to understand that
these moments of collage communication are legitimate. Mistakes are part of the
learning process and some of the most profound works of fine art were thought
to be mistakes by the artists themselves; an adjustment to real world obstacles
that produced more interesting products then the artist’s original intention (here is list of quotes that work with this idea.)
Visual literacy provides the students with a bridge between
their interlanguage and their outer expression. The use of images and cultural
symbolic representation provides students with the tools to improve their
storytelling in English and to provide a more malleable structure to
communicate within.
Students' pictorial autobiographies.
Their written narratives were separate.
Their final project combined them
together in a digital format.
The use of collage via digital tools provides the students
the ability to piece together their narratives with sound, image, and video. By
loosening the structure of the acceptable classroom composition assignment,
students have more freedom to explore the unknown creative meanings as they
work to speak their stories that originate in Korean, but have to travel into
effectively being told in English. Collage (mash-ups) gives students the
opportunities to add texture to their storytelling that they can’t yet say in full-color
via their foreign language(s).
Now, I am not advocating that your students simply stand in
front of a video camera and talk. I don’t believe that is storytelling, nor does it
apply the rigorous critical thinking that is embedded in the creative arts-based process.
Students are still accountable to construct well-thought out compositions. They are
just given more creative tools and vocabulary to produce them and the instruction to scaffold them.
Resources
Chappell, Sharon Verner & Faltis, Christian J. (2013) The Arts and Emergent Bilingual Youth: building culturally responsive, critical and creative education in school and community contexts. New York and London: Routledge.
When taking snapshots, users aren’t able to over-control the process of capturing
the abstract image. Despite the user’s best efforts, a level of spontaneous
interaction between the platform and user will always be captured. 
I kept wondering what to do with the images? How could they be
used in the ESL classroom? How could I integrate this app into my curriculum? 
Enter Animoto
