How to use your own sound-tracks in GoAnimate

In this animation in GoAnimate  I have recorded my own voice using the Audacity sound program. Here I explain how you can record your own sound-tracks and then upload the sound-tracks in the GoAnimate program.  The most important point in this video is that you should export the sound-files as wav-files in order to be able to upload them in the GoAnimate program! The girl in this animation comments on the fact that she and her friend need a separate room in order to record sound-files. That's actually very important when you are going to record sound-files!

GoAnimate animation: E.coli bacteria

After having produced this animation on GoAnimate I exported it to my Youtube videos. This animation is an example of how you can make an animation in GoAnimate that is built on the same theme as a short story that you have read. This animation is built on the same theme as the short story A Day's Wait by Ernest Hemingway. In the short story A Day's Wait we meet Schatz who believes he is going to die because his fever is 102 Fahrenheit.Schatz believes he is going to die because he doesn't realize there is a difference between Fahrenheit and Celsius .

Here is a film synopis of my animation E.coli bacteria:
Millie and David are having a date at Mac.Donalds when they meet a guy who tells them that he has had bad stomach cramps ever since he was at Mac.Donalds 5 days ago eating hamburgers. Millie and David tell him that he should go and see a doctor because Millie has read in the newspaper recently that a very bad strain of E.coli bacteria was found in some undercooked beef used for hamburgers.He goes to see a doctor who tells him that his only problem is that he has been eating too many hamburgers .He starts to cry because he really believed he was going to die as he knew that E.coli poisoning could cause life threatening kidney problems.

How to make a storyboard before you make an animation in GoAnimate

In the video above you get an explanation and illustrations of how to make a storyboard. The best way to make an animation in GoAnimate is to start with writing a story-board. When you write a storyboard it is easier when you are in the "studio" in GoAnimate to actually  make the animation the way you want. You can use white sheets of paper where you draw the different scenes and write below the scenes what the characters are going to say, what kind of music or sound-effects you will use, how you will use the camera etc. It is also possible to use yellow post-it notes to write down the different scenes ( make sure you have enough post-it notes!).  Remember that it takes about 22-23 scenes to make an animation that lasts 2 minutes in GoAnimate.

You can read more about the making of storyboards here

If you want to print out a ready made sheets for storyboard, click here

Reading strategies

When we read English texts, whether it is newspaper articles, short stories or poems, the main goal is most of the time a global comprehension of the text.  It is not necessary to understand every word in order to understand what a text in English is about.  The main goal when we read most English texts is to achieve a global understanding of the text. Below you find some useful reading strategies to achieve this purpose.

Here are some useful reading strategies:
1. Use your real world information. Do you know anything about this topic or related topics from before?
2. Look at the title of the text and the headings, and use these to find out what the text is about. If  the text does not have headings you can write your own headings to the different paragraphs in the text.
3. Look at the illustrations. Do they tell you what the text is about?
4. Read in between the lines; what do you think happens next? What are your guesses?
5. Use the context to predict meaning.
5. Read for meaning; do not look up every word.

A lot of pupils believe that reading means that you are able to read a text aloud. Others believe that to read a foreign language is to read one word at the time, and to try to learn the text by heart. But the purpose of reading is to be able to achieve a global understanding of the text. Instead of reading the way a lot of students hav a tendencay to read, namely " bottom up"; from word to meaning,  you should read "top down; that is from meaning to word. Because to read is to create a meaning from what you already know.  It is to predict what is going to happen next .

Frank Smith has written about the purpose of reading in a good way:
"Reading is asking questions to printed text. And reading with comprehension becomes a matter of getting your questions answered." Frank Smith in Reading Without Nonsense ( 1997).

Traditional and modern Haiku poems

Haiku is a traditional form of Japanese poetry that dates back to the 19th century. Today modern haiku is very often written based on the the form and the ideas behind the traditional Japanese haiku.

The metrical pattern and the theme of the tradtional and the modern haiku

The metrical pattern of the traditional haiku poems consists of 5, 7 and 5 syllables in three units. It can sometimes be difficult to follow this rule strictly in English, but modern Haiku poems in Englsih keep to this rule more or less strictly. Below you find a modern haiku poem in English which consists of 4, 7 and 4 syllables in three units.

Loneliness

No sky at all;
no earth at all - and still
the snowflakes fall....

Shiki

Most haiku poem deal with subjects from daily life in a way that gives the reader a new experience of a well-known theme or situation. The haiku poem above deals with the theme of loneliness and in a paraphrase we can say that it deals with the fact that although people may have no strong personal relationships to neither people in their past nor people who are around them in the present, still they are able to go on with their lives.

We may say that the theme of loneliness is a theme from daily life, as a lot of people experience isolation and the lack of strong human relationships in our postmodern society.

The technique of two sections in the traditional and the modern haiku
The traditional Haiku divides the poem into two parts or sections. The two sections remain to a certain degree independent of each other, but most sections must enrich the understanding of the other. In order to divide the poem into two parts, either the first or the second part normally ends with a colon, a long dash or an ellipsis.

When you write a Haiku poem in a glogster, try to follow the ideas and the form behind the traditional Haiku poem, although you may divert a little form the strict form and rules.