The ICT lesson for this week is really great as more amazing web tools have been introduced by Russell, therefore, it is worth for me to share those tools with you guys in this entry. I will explain all the tools in separated entries. So, enjoy!

First tool: Zimmer Twins 

What is it?
A movie-maker tool that allows users to create cartoon movie endings from pre-created starters or even  users can start their own animated movies from the scratch! It is designed based on the Qubo animated-series.


How does it work?

For online training video, simply log on to Russell Stannard great website

- Teachers preview the pre-created starters to engage learners with the tools, later ask them to work in pairs or groups and select one of the starters.

- Learners need to finish story however they would like based on the instruction from the site or hand out from teachers

- Learners need to write down the complete story in their writing book.
# [Movies festival / competition]
- Teachers ask learners to work in groups and produce their own group movie from scratch based on selected topics. This will encourage collaborative learning environment.
- Teachers and the other learners will evaluate and give feedback and comment on how good the movie is and how to improve it. 

Examples of lesson plan: 

i) Lesson plan I

ii) Lesson plan II

# More lesson ideas...

What are the learning styles that involve?

1) Gardener's Multiple Intelligences: 

2) Blended Learning: 

3) Bloom taxonomy: 

# Age range : 11 - 17 years old

Example of the end product:
This is the movie that I have created in the class with my friend, Tiqa. I cannot embed into blog and share to people worldwide because only VIP Members that pay the fee can do so. Therefore, I can only share the link with others through email. To view the movie, just click on the picture below:

What are the advantages?
1. Develop creativity and boost the motivation : as learners need to direct and produce their own animated movies, therefore their learning process involves the use of memory, motivation and thinking  (cognitive psychology)
2. Personalisation: by using this tool, learners construct their own knowledge by choosing their favourite characters and contexts, provide the characters with dialogue and emotions, write their own screen plays based on their personal experience and ideas. This allow them to contextualize and personalise the information by themselves (constructivism)
3. Allow learners to become active rather than passive as they are doing meaningful activities that are practical and require them to think and reflect on their own learning
4. Foster autonomous learning: this tool is provided online, therefore learners can do the task on their own space anywhere and anytime as location and distance are not issues.
5. Various suggestion for classroom practices: click HERE!

What are the limitations?
1. If users do not register the account (require email address), they would not be able to save their creation
2. For the free members, their movie can only be watched by those who have the movie link. If they want their movie to be watched worldwide, they must pay the fee.
3. Users cannot edit the starter, they just can continue the story
4. Limited access as it can only be used if the computers and internet access are available (there is no software downloaded version)
5. Users need Flash 8 (or higher) installed for the Zimmer Twins to work properly

Notes: Even though users need to pay certain amount to enjoy more beneficial features especially for the classroom purposes, but it is worth paying as it is affordable and beneficial. To compare the benefits, just click HERE

Further suggestions:
i) Kerpoof! : another great website for digital story-telling as it provides opportunity for learners to create animated movie and even create the story and turn them into books, make greeting cards, draw and colour the pictures, making it as teacher-friendly resources where many activities can be integrated into language learning classroom environment.

ii) Toontastic and Story Patch: application that are very good for educational purposes, but only for iPad users. The former is useful for making animated movie while the latter is a story-telling application that is beneficial for language learning.

~Because English is FUN! :) ~

# At the beginning of the class, teachers provide brief tutorial or model and instruction sheet on how to use this tool
# Teachers ask learners to work in pairs and create their own movie. Teachers need to decide whether the topic is theme-free or based on certain issues.
# For example, in the literature class, teacher can assign task to learners to do the summary of every chapter in the novel that has been used as a part of the syllabus where they need to pick up one each (one pair for one chapter) and transfer the information into dialogues in the movie.
# As every movie created has a link, teachers can ask learners to send the link to them and their peers' emails.
# Teachers can choose which movie is the best, show it in the class and write some comments.
# Teachers can also get feedback from the students on how to improve the movie especially in terms of content.
# Apart from that, teachers can publish the links on their blog, create a poll and make learners vote for the best.
# To vary the learning styles, carrying out the role-play based on the movie can be a good follow up activity

What are the learning styles that have involved?
In this case, it involves the implementation of Flemming's VAK:
1) Visual: Learners can enjoy seeing and exploring the characters, contexts and scenes in colourful animation type
2) Auditory: Learners can hear the sound provided, involve in discussion with their peers and listen to the explanation of the instruction, lead by the teachers.
3) Kinaesthetic: Learners can try to act out the movie that they have produced.

Who are the learners?
# Secondary school Malaysian students whose mostly first language is not English
# Intermediate and advanced levels of English as they are believed to be already equipped with the sufficient level of English, some vocabulary to be used plus knowledge from the previous experience in learning English back in their primary school.
# Age range: from 13 - 17 years old.

However, this should not be seen as a barrier that denies the lower level learners' opportunity to learn as teachers can also play their roles in providing assistance for example, at the beginning of the class, teachers can work together with them and come up with an example of the movie, then later show it in the class. This will engage learners' attention to the actual task. Then, students can be asked to work in pairs and try to produce their own movie using their own vocabulary.

Apart from that, it is also worth for the teachers to provide hand out containing the steps involved, just to guide the learners who are not really good in using computers. For example:

The example of the end product:
The movie below is produced by me and my friend, Vee Vien during the ICT class:

1. It is fun and great for motivation

As the learners at the age of 13 years and above are usually enjoy watching movies, this tool can arouse their interests towards learning English and deviate from the usual chalk-and-talk traditional teaching method. They will have so much fun creating and even more fun watching the end product. They will also get excited by the prospect of actually producing something that they could show or send to family and friends, thus perceiving English as an interesting and worth subject to be learned.

This tool is equipped with different sections such as backgrounds, characters, sky and plots that can be chosen by students thus providing them the contexts and make them focus on what they are going to do for each step.