It’s the end of November , 2008, and many video class students are working hard to complete video projects for the up and coming TCFL Christmas Party. One group wants to make a “kamishibai”-style video of a famous Christmas story. Here are some links to possible stories:
Here are the Voicethreads on Japanese culture that our class came up with. I think you’ll agree they came out very well! Please leave your questions and comments on the treads. The students will really appreciate them.
Again, for first time visitors to this site, Voicethreads are online media albums allowing people to add comments in various forms, either by text, audio, or even video. Voicethreads can also be linked to and shared quite easily, as is demonstrated here. They are promising tools for English practice because they collect an entire group’s story in one place.
Suguru: Funny Engrish*
*Engrish is a word used to describe strange and funny English that appears in public places around Japan.
Keita: Chikara Taro
Here is Keita’s version of a traditional kamishibai folkstory, with pictures he drew himself!
Ok videoclassers, you all did a great job on your first Voicethreads. Now I would like you to try one more project with this service: Creating a Voicethread about some aspect of Japanese culture. I think this would be very interesting for an English speaking audience, and you might learning something new about your own country, too!
Here’s what I want you to do:
Pick one of the following topics:
Introduce & demonstrate a typical Japanese custom, such as taking your shoes off before going inside or using chopsticks to eat food.
Introduce a famous Japanese folktale, such as Momotaro. Create your own kamishibai, or introduce a traditional one. Making your own pictures would be great!!!
Introduce a Japanese poem that you like, such as a haiku (or write your own!).
Introduce about Japanese movies that you like, such as Miyazaki films or ones by other directors. TV shows, animes, and dramas are are also very good ideas.
Introduce a traditional Japanese art or craft, such as shodo, tea ceremony, pottery (togei), origami, making ramen noodles.
Introduce a historical place. For example, you can find a statue or monument, then tell the story of what this is all about.
Introduce a traditional Japanese game or sport, such as kendama, shogi, or kendo.
Create a Voicethread about why Japanese architecture is unique.
Introduce a Japanese festival, such as the Chindon matsuri, or the Owara Kaze no Bon.
Your own idea!
Tell Jerry your topic choice.
After your topic is approved, collect your photos. You can take your own photos or grab some from the Internet. You can also scan photos from a book (check the TCFL library). If you are feeling very creative, draw or paint your own pictures! We can scan them into the computer. Oh, and you can also upload some short video clips as well. See Jerry for help about this.
Write a script. Short is okay- two or three sentences for each picture. Have Jerry correct your English.
Create the Voicethread as you did before: upload the photos, record the captions, share with Jerry and your friends.
Look at your classmate’s Voicethreads and leave some comments.
That’s it! You can do this project by yourself or with ONE partner. The deadline is Thursday, July 19th.
If you need some ideas, here are some sample Voicethreads you can look at for inspiration:
Getting a New Haircut (narrative non-fiction story)
This Voicethread is a good example of telling a simple narrative story. You can use this structure to introduce some Japanese custom or experience:
Here are our first efforts at making Voicethreads. They were surprisingly easy to make, and it looked like the students had fun. Our first attempt consisted of taking their already made Flickr slideshows from Project 1 and turning them into Voicethreads. This was easy because it is possible to import photos directly from Flickr.
To begin with, I created my own Voicethread as a demonstration project. I used this as a teaching tool to instruct students on how to create their own. My story was a simple narrative of a typical busy morning at our house:
Here are the students’ Voicethreads. If you watch some of them, please leave a comment or two or three! The students will appreciate it.
Howdy, students! Thanks for working hard to complete your first project, a slideshow story using Flickr. This time, I want to take online slideshows to the next level by asking you to your own voice to your pictures. To do this, we will use the very cool online service called “Voicethread.”
Voicethread is similar to Flickr, in that you can upload your photos and have people look at them and leave comments. However, Voicethread is unique because you are not limited to text-only captions. In fact, you can record your own voice or video talking about each picture! And that’s not all… People watching your slideshow can also leave audio, video, or text comments. This multi-media capability of Voicethread creates great opportunities to practice your English in a fun way.
Here is what I want you to do for Project 2: Create a slideshow story using Voicethread. The deadline is next week, June 26th.
Step by step:
Create a Voicethread account. Hint: Use your Gmail username and password.
Upload an avatar, an image that represents you. This can be a photo of you or another image.
Hit the Create tab and then import your photos from your Flickr account.
Type in a title and description for your slideshow (called a “Voicethread”).
Record some commentary for each photo by clicking the Record button.
If you like how the comment sounds, click Save. If not, click Cancel and record again.
Once you are done, share your slideshow with me (talandis@gmail.com) and your friends. You will need to add people to your friends list before you can share your VoiceThread with them.
Finally, enjoy watching the Voicethreads of your classmates. Don’t forget to leave comments!
I hope this is not too confusing! It’s actually easier to do than to explain. I will show you in class.
Overall, the purpose of this assignment is to:
Learn how to use Voicethread, an exciting online tool for practicing English
Create a multi-media digital story
Have fun watching other stories and leaving comments, all in English
Hint: To make it easy, I recommend creating a VoiceThread version of your Flickr slideshow story. If you are ambitious, why not create a new story? Take some new photos, upload them to your Flickr account, and write out your comments on a piece of paper. I can check your English for you. Be creative! Have fun!
Hey everyone, You’ve been working hard at creating your Flickr slideshows recently, so I would like to post links to your projects here. Again, the goals of this project have been:
To practice taking good photographs (Don’t forget the Top 10 Tips!)
To learn how to manage and upload the photos to Flickr
To learn how to use Flickr in general
To create and share a slideshow that tells a story with English
To practice English by reading slideshow stories and leaving comments
These are all skills you will need to do projects later on this year. The project, in other words, was designed to give you a base of knowledge and ability. Here is a list of links to all of your hard work:
Our Flickr slideshow stories (Don’t forget to leave some comments!)
This website is dedicated to supporting video production students at the Toyama College of Foreign Languages, a small vocational school in Toyama City, Japan featuring language study (mostly English). In this course, students are learning multimedia production skills in order to support social networking in English.
Our School
Located in downtown Toyama City, Japan, the Toyama College of Foreign Languages (TCFL) is a senmon gakkou (vocational school) focusing on language education (mostly English). Our primary goals are to give our 100 or so students practical English skills and prepare them for careers requiring English, transferring to higher education, or passing various exams such as TOEIC and the STEP test. For more information, please visit our website.
