Seeing that the ICT suite was free on the second to last day of term and wanting to do a fun, Christmassy activity with the children, I booked Year 4 in for the afternoon to "Elf" themselves! This involves visiting www.elfyourself.com where you can import a picture of a face onto the body of an elf which then performs a choreographed dance with other elves depending on how many friends' faces you want to involve!
During the morning craft lesson, I took a portrait photograph of each pupil using a digital camera. During lunch, I loaded the photographs onto the "shared" drive so that the pupils could access their pictures when they logged on in the afternoon. I also created two dummy email accounts using Hushmail which allowed the children to register (unavoidable) and then to send their creations to "my" account. This enabled me to log in and put the pupils' creations on the big screen back in the classroom.
During the morning craft lesson, I took a portrait photograph of each pupil using a digital camera. During lunch, I loaded the photographs onto the "shared" drive so that the pupils could access their pictures when they logged on in the afternoon. I also created two dummy email accounts using Hushmail which allowed the children to register (unavoidable) and then to send their creations to "my" account. This enabled me to log in and put the pupils' creations on the big screen back in the classroom.
This was a great end-of-term ICT activity that produced much hilarity, especially when some comedian copied and pasted the teaching staff of year 4's heads onto disco dancing elves! It gave the children practice in selecting and importing photos and emailing. With the right class, I would definitely use this activity again as an end-of-term ICT treat!