Home page of Dvolver Movie Maker Site |
WHAT IS DVOLVER MOVIE MAKER?
Dvolver Movie Maker, over 8 million movies have been created in it! This is a FREE website which includes a lot of chit chat and various interesting characters. To be precise, this site enables both teachers and students to either express their own views or practise their language usage by directing their own short movies using their own imagination and language.
What's interesting is Dvolver offers its users with wide range of choices throughout the movies making process. For example, there are more than 10 beautiful backgrounds and 30 animated characters to be chosen from. Additionally, the users are free to choose any plot and put in any lines which they would like their characters to say. After that, more scenes can also be added on to turn their dialogue into an awesome movie!
HOW TO USE IT?
There are just 8 EASY PEASY STEPS to create your own movie by using Dvolver.
Look at the slideshow below!
SAMPLE MOVIES
The followings are the sample movies which I have created through Dvolver.
Have a quick look and hope you'll enjoy it!!
Movie 1: The Elf''s Revenge 1 (To be continued..)
Movie 2: The Elf's Revenge 2 (The End)
WHY DO TEACHERS & STUDENTS LIKE DVOLVER?
Developing
students’ writing and creative thinking skills is a vital part of learning
languages. Using Dvolver Movie Maker as a tool to create digital comics in
learning allows students to experiment and utilise these skills. As compared to
face to face speaking, this way of communication enables students to express
contents confidently through the movie characters so that constraints caused by
psychological barriers to production on second language (L2) learners are eliminated
and pressure related to productive skills is minimised.
Dvolver
Movie Maker can be very helpful for both lower and higher-levelled students as
for the previous, it maximised the use of simple language and it allow use of a
variety of language registers for the latter. Its enjoyable format also helps
enhance students’ motivation to learn languages by using an active learning
tool and promoting active and creative approach of students. Indirectly, Dvolver
can also increase students’ self-esteem because using the interesting
characters and backgrounds to supports the students’ stories allows professional
result which students can feel proud of.
HOW CAN I APPLY DVOLVER IN AN ELT LESSON?
To implement
language learning lessons utilising Dvolver Movie Maker, it is necessary to
have a classroom equipped with computers and the Internet connection. The task
can be equally completed as homework. Students can
work either individually or in groups to come up with a solution.
There are plenty of possibilities on how to explore Dvolver
in an ELT lesson:
- Use movies to talk about holidays, school, work, etc.
- Encourage students to use movie’s characters to comment on local or national celebrations, cultural
events and social trends. - Have students place value or reflect on a particular
experience in a movie. - Illustrate a language problem.
- Have a character to explain a grammar point or go through a vocabulary students were taught in the lesson.
- Create a drama using the short movies created by students.
Students may serialise their dramas by creating a new episode/scene each day as part of a continuing story.
The results can be presented or emailed to the teacher
and/or students. Another possibility is to select the best movie between all
the students and place it on the school website if there is one.
SOME LIMITATIONS OF DVOLVER
- Users can only choose two characters and type in six characters' line in each scene. And, maximum three scenes can be made in each movie. This could lead to a monotonous atmosphere and a quick loss of interest for higher-levelled learners.
- The movie characters cannot speak aloud and they possess the same facial expressions at all time.
- Movies cannot be edited once they have been finished created. Users have to redo all over again if there are mistakes.
- There are no "Rewind", "Pause", "Fast forward" buttons when the movie is playing. It could be difficult for teachers if they want to stop and explain a particular dialogue to their students.
- Users are unable to make the movie into full screen mode.
- Mandarin language cannot be used as one of the medium for the dialogue.
This looks interesting to me...I would definitely give it a try when I have the chance!!
ReplyDeleteYes Ch'ng, you should! This activity is pretty enjoyable! It encourages quiet students to express their imaginative thoughts through movie making too. :)
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