Heading into the final weeks of class, I'm going to introduce my first grade to a website called Kerpoof. They really enjoy KidPix, but it has been having some compatibility problems with a new version of Quicktime. I can't figure out how to back out the newer version of Quicktime so I can reload an older version.When looking for an interesting project to allow for some storytelling, I came across a post over at the Welcome to NCS-Tech Blog.
The Setup
We've been working at Panwapa, so I am keeping the same username and password scheme from that website over on Kerpoof. I like the website's parent information letter. They are very clear in their intention to allow children to work at the website and keep their private identity information safe.
Real Life Decisions
One of the lessons at CyberSmart for the K-1 group is called Find the Ad. Using this website will allow us to discuss a real life situation. Kerpoof is an ad-free space, but there are commercial intentions involved. As the students sign in, there are coins that are given to the user account. Some of the items will be available to all students, others are only available to users whose parents have signed up for a membership. This may not arise as an issue for a while since it takes a couple hundred points to "buy" things at the Kerpoof store. It will be good to discuss the value of $4.39 for a month's membership, $24.79 for a six-month membership, and $44.79 for a year long membership.
The Equation So Far
I am looking forward to presenting this lesson during the week. We will easily have time to sign in, create the avatar, and begin creating a story. We will finish it before the end of the school year. I am curious to see how the students feel about the character sets randomly changing. They are used to a standard set of stickers and stampers always being available in Kid Pix. I have requested a group id for my students. When I receive the id, I will come back and describe more of our journey through this website.
Image Citation:
"Copyright 2008 Kerpoof, LLC; Used With Permission."
Outstanding post, Ann! I am hoping to get to this software this week or next. Hope I don't run into the problems I did with Panwapa - we're still dealing with bandwidth problems, unfortunately. Take care!
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Thanks Kevin:
ReplyDeleteI'm curious to see how it runs on the slower Macs. I'm especially interested in learning how it will work as a potential product going forward in class. I'll be keeping an eye out for your reflections with your students.
Ann
Kerpoof should work fine on (reasonably) older and slower Macs - please let us know if you run into performance issues or bandwith issues. Thanks for trying out Kerpoof and sharing the site!
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ReplyDeleteThank you for the comment. Everything went very smoothly. My oldest iMacs are 600Mhz G3 PowerPCs with 256MB of RAM and it was great. The children really enjoyed themselves. It was a very positive experience.
Ann
Thank you for leaving a comment on my video conferencing blog. If your district is thinking about purchasing a room based video conferencing system - talk to your network folks first and make sure you have the bandwidth available - most vc's take place at 384 to 772 kps. I highly recommend either Polycoms or Tandbergs. Depending on the system $8000 to $15,000. is the cost. Glad to see you are into web 2.0 tools for the classroom!!
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