Who is Smik?

Monday 18 January 2010

Education.au Blogfest #5: Giving visitors something to do

Task #5 in the Education.au BlogFest asks us to focus on giving visitors something to do, i.e. letting them participate in an activity on your blog.

It is not always easy to embed an activity in your blog - many of the activities send people off to external sites. So I've got an example of each.

First of all here is something i created about the BlogFest at Xtranormal.

Hopefully you will be able to see it below (just click on the little red arrow if you can) - otherwise see it online here.



The second activity definitely takes you off to an external site but I am sure you will enjoy it.
Just click on the image for transportation by my magic carpet.

The game is actually a promo for Quebec’s Musee de la Civilisation for their Egyptian exhibition open April 2009-April 2010. The participant can take part in 3 games related to funerary rites, and learn additional information.

Interestingly you play the games before reading any text (although you can choose to read information first), and you can re-try each game until you get it right. I think as a learning object it works very well. In terms of using it in a lesson to engage it is not too long, and would fit the bill for most students.

How did you enjoy these activities?

4 comments:

Nick said...

Kerrie that was a great blog. I liked the text-to-movie video; technology knows no bounds these days. I can see Language and Drama teachers embracing this technology, provided of course that their Internet Admin allows them and their students access to this site (and is not blocked). I can use this technology with my junuior science students submitting a movie report for their practicals. Wonder if it can accept external files such as photos of the setting up process, readings, results etc. I can see so many other applications for it in a class environment.

The Canadian Museum's Egyptian Exhibition site provides probably one of the best L.O. I've seen in years; it is appropriately documented, entertaining, informative and a breeze to work through. I have been awartded a veertificate but somehow the screen showing the parchment disappeared after a second or so and threw me back to the start of the game. Never mind.

Kerrie Smith said...

Thanks Nick. I do think the text to movie video is a bit limited, but it works really well in animating a script. You can't add your own images etc though. I'm not sure whether you can insert URLs and make them active either - haven't tried that. Good for presenting a dialogue though and fun to do - not so time consuming.

I agree with your thoughts about the Egyptian LO.

Another interesting one is Wall Wisher - have you seen that?
http://www.wallwisher.com/wall/priorities
That unfortunately was blocked in some schools.

You might like to look at this one too
http://webupon.com/web-talk/10-awesome-flash-animated-interactive-websites/

Helen said...

The Egyptian one is brilliant but frustrating when you don't get the game right. Good LO though.
Your text-to-movie inspired me to have a go as well. The Australian accents aren't up to much though. I was tempted to try the French ones.
Regarding trying things out on a blog - I think generally I prefer them to be quick. I don't really want to spend a lot of time on someone's blog. I want to work it out quickly, comment (maybe), and then move on.

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