Hi, I would like to share how Deaf children enjoy developing their literacy skills via Auslan/ASL movie making with powerpoint. Approx 5 min example of video signing with powerpoint and animated text is shown in the video clip.
P.S. please excuse my awkward attempt on signing both ASL and Auslan together in the video clip! :)
P.P.S. How to go about it - children video tape their story piece, then edit their story in Windows Movie Maker. Afterwards, they make slides in powerpoint and insert the video clips and type/animate their text.
Saturday, June 23, 2007
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10 comments:
GREAT JOB! How long will it take you to make it?
I am pretty sure that Deaf children enjoy it very muhc!!!!!
thanks :)
it took me about 6 hours to get the text and pictures animated at the right time... whew!!! but it was enjoyable to do, and time flies!
Hi!
Wow I'm impressed! You could do AUSLAN/ASL at the same time. I tried to do that before and it was impossible!
Good job! :-D
By the way, great video.. awesome texts, etc..
-SG
Hi Susan.
First, I love that you can sign both Auslan and ASL. Very cool! I learn from you.
Next, I'm impressed with your creativity. You have a lot of imaginative resources in your head and it's wonderful to see what you put together.
Finally, I hope you will allow me to offer some constructive feedback to help make your next power point project even better.
1) There is so much going on in the frame at the same time. It was hard for me to decide just exactly what to follow (should I watch the signs? The images? The words?) It waa a little overwhelming.
2) Because I was trying to take it all in, I would miss pieces of the story because my eyes were still trying to jump from place to place.
3) The captioned words were too different. The eyes naturally scan and read from left to right. But the words were coming into the frame from the bottom, from the right, and different each time. Hard for the brain to process "reading" as we are taught to read from left to right.
4) Instead of reading word by word, my brain focused on certain words because of their color or font or size difference. Was this on purpose? I could understand making words in different shapes, colors and size if you wanted to emphasize that word, but in doing so, you lost the sentence. I didn't get the full sentence, just certain words because they stood out.
5) The images were helpful, yet their placement on the frame was a little confusing. Sometimes they were on the left, sometimes on the right, sometimes they were high or low. Again, my brain was really working to try to follow while taking in the signed clip and the words below.
The bottom line, if an adult gets that overwhelmed, I wonder if the kids would as well? You're trying to teach language development and reading. I would wonder if this was more entertaining like a cartoon, than actually helpful in teaching them the content of the story.
So, if I may respectfully offer some suggestion they would be this:
If you want to keep all 3 area - signed clip, images and captions - in the power point presentation, then,
1) place the video clip in the middle.
2) place the images on top of the video clip so they show up from side to side and run more like a comic strip in one direction from left to right.
3) keep your captions below the signed clip as you did, but keep them all in one font, one color and one size, unless you are emphasizing specific new vocabulary words. The make those words bold, but keep them in the same color, or always in one alternative color (but not a rainbow mix of colors).
4) When the words come up, have them enter from left to right as we would read them. They can just appear, or dissolve in 1 word at a time. While words coming from up or down or overlapping or diagonal is artistic and entertaining, it's very hard to read.
I agree with the comments above that I do think kids will enjoy your power point clip, but as entertainment. I don't think it will help them with reading or improve their literacy YET. I think you have a good thing going here. My suggestions are just to tweak it a little more to match how the brain reads so it's not so overwhelming and kids can actually be able to tell you what the story was about.
I bet if they watched now, they would remember pieces from the images, signs or words, but not able to tell you what they story was really about.
I want to end my comment by clarifying that your work it amazing and I know you have the creative energy and resources to continue to to great things for deaf children and education. If you can match your artistic nature with some research on how the brain learns to read, I know you will continue to do great things! You are a gem!
Thank you for letting me share some feedback. It'[s only feedback. I am just one person. Balance my feedback with others and keep what is worth keeping. Then let the rest gently blow away int he wind.
I have great respect for you and admire your work. Would love to meet you some day.
~ LaRonda
Wow! That takes a lot of time and effort to do that! I know what it takes! I never thought about using PowerPoint as a tool to insert movie. Thanks for a great tip! I am so excited to see your work. It is fabulous! Tell me more about what you have observed the deaf children's learning process when showing your clip.
hi seekgeo,
doing Auslan/ASL at the same time was so hard! I had to re-do my video clip intro about 10 times!!! I was relieved when I finally got it covered from start to finish heh.
Hi LaRonda,
ha ha I guess I went overboard in the animation stuff!! :)
yes, I agree with you, it is difficult to see the story, both signing and reading text, because they both happen at the same time (divided attention)... and too much animation going on. Hearing children can hear sounds and watch at the same time, whereas for visual we need to make sure not to go overboard.
There is a writing competition for deaf students going on here, and one of my student has difficulty in writing and steadily refused to write anything. His Auslan skills are very good though, so I was trying to think how to make the competition appealing for him, and the powerpoint was one of the ways to go about it... just to have him enjoy actual typing (translating Auslan into English) process is the challenge...
I am glad that you shared your tips on how to make the presentation flow smoothly - they will be excellent discussion points with students on how to present their story in a way that everyone can read clearly.
Thanks again, and please do share your feedback, I love reading how others think about things and ways to improve them :)
Hi Barb,
thanks for your feedback :) I only learnt about how video clips can be inserted in powerpoint a few months ago! :)
Last week, the students and I were discussing about the writing competition, and how it can be either signed or written. I showed the powerpoint story to them as one of the ways to present their story, and they all were glued to it. I didn't ask them if they understood the whole story though, as time was short (we only have an hour a week to work together on this project) and they needed to start creating their stories. They got the idea though, and were excited about creating their own stories. (They are now in the process of making a storymap and videotaping their pieces).
What LaRonda shared was very good, I will discuss with them and ask them if they are able to follow my story, and brainstorm ways to improve the reading part (with LaRonda's tips) since they will need to present their stories smoothly and clerarly for judges to be able to read and understand.
Cool. Any way to motivate the kids on the creative and visual ends.
thanks, drmzz :)
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