Creativity tool: Dvolver

Getting to know Dvolver:

Dvolver Movie Maker is a creativity tool that can be used for teaching in the classroom. It is a free site where users are able to input text, and choose backgrounds, characters, and music to accompany their creation which can be shared by e-mail or by embedding html code. 

What I found with Dvolver is that the more time you spend experimenting with this tool the more you realize you can do with it. There are several disadvantages, though, and they will be discussed below. The end product of this tool is comprised of avatars who communicate through texts inside of speech bubbles. The skills needed to create a Dvolver movie are rather minimal: you choose the scene, you choose the characters, you choose the text. For that reason, I highly recommend Dvolver for students ranging between elementary to upper intermediate level, or Year 6 to secondary secondary level in a Malaysian context. 

Create your Dvolver movie:

1. You will first need to select a background and a sky.

2. Next, choose a plot. This step will allow you to choose how the characters will interact. The available choices are: 

• Rendez-vous: characters enter from opposite sides of the screen, converse, and go back the way they came.
• Pick-up: Exactly what it sounds like. They enter from opposite sides, converse, and leave together.
• Chase: Characters “chase” each other back and forth across the screen, converse, and “chase” away together.
• Soliloquy (eg: monologue): The character enters, speaks, and leaves.

3. Select your avatars / characters (maximum 2), depending on your plot selection.

4. Next, you can enter up to 3 speech bubbles per character, per scene. There is a limit of 100 characters per character’s line. You can have maximum of 3 scenes for each movie.

5. Choose background music for your movie. Once you are done, you can choose to add a new scene or click finish and preview your creation. You can always review your work before sending it to your recipients or embedding it in your blog by clicking the back button to edit.

Step 1-4 are the basic guidelines on how to make a Dvolver movie. For a full online tutorial, you may visit this link: Russell's Dvolver Tutorial.

Sample Movie:

Dvolver and Language Learning

Supports Cognitivistic View of Learning: 

Cognitive theories take the perspective that students actively process information and learning takes place through the efforts of the student as they organise, store and find relationships between information, linking new to old knowledge, schema and scripts. 

Integrating Dvolver in language teaching perfectly fits the cognitive aspect of learning  as it involves an active cognitive experimentation on students' part in order to create a well connected and sequenced conversation between the avatars. More than just using correct connectors to channel meaning and information, Dvolver explicitly requires learners to use contextually appropriate greetings according to themes and settings, and precise vocabulary for each utterance as it only allows for 100 characters per line and maximum of 3 scenes for movie. For that reason, students' cognitive and language ability are highly challenged in a sense that they have to carefully organise and construct a response adhered to the word limit. 

Summarizing novels or short stories using Dvolver favours the cognitive aspect of learning as it inculcates the events of learning and instruction as a series of phases, using the cognitive steps of linking, retrieving and transferring information.

Student-centredness:

Dvolver acknowledges the belief that students’ perceptions of the world were important, that they were relevant and appropriate for a successful learning. Employing the use of Dvolver for classroom tasks accounts for integrating the increased sense of autonomy and allows for active participation on the students' part as it enables learners to have 'choices' in their own learning process. Instead of doing what they are told, students are given a room to be creative by becoming a film director directing their own mini films and explore the language freely at their own pace. It is all about what the students do to achieve this, rather than what the teacher does. 

Dvolver and Classroom Activities:

Reading Comprehension (secondary level): 

Students could use Rendez-vous or Chase plot to summarize their argumentative essays and present their ideas to respective groups 

Pre-reading in Literature (all levels): 

Teachers can use the tool to introduce a new chapter or a new story of a novel/drama/plays by making a short Dvolver movie to generate students' interests and activate their schemata. The wide range of plot selection will able to give the students' a 'taste' of what to be expected in the new literary chapter.

Post-reading in Literature (all levels): 

Assigning students to transform the novel into a summary play. The students could create an alternative to something that happened in the story as well, for example: new ending. This will have to depend on the type of story, of course, as there is a limit to 2 characters per scene.

Grammar with Dvolver (Year 6 - lower secondary level): 

Teacher to model and explain the use of grammar points to class using Dvolver animation. In pairs, students will create their own version of Dvolver movie using the new language item learned as practice before they present their work to other pairs or in the plenary session. Grammar points which worth to be ventured via this tool include:

1. Modals (would, will, must, can, could etc) 
2. Tenses (simple past / present, present / past progressive etc)
3. Reported speech (T to give directed speech text, Ss to convert into reported sentences)  
4. Connectors (furthermore, in addition, moreover and so forth).

Creative Writing Competition (all levels): 
Students working in pairs or groups to create a short movie on selected topics (weather, shopping, travel, food etc), in given time. Movies are assessed by the success criteria agreed on both students and teachers, for example, 1) covers the topic accurately, 2) precise title, 3) correct tenses (and the list goes on), and the winning movie will be picked through peer voting and peer feedback in plenary session. The winning Dvolver movie could be published in the class or school blog as a reward. 

Disadvantages:

• Profanity and colloquial language: Some students may view that cursing or swearing spices up the emotion of a conversation, and that the excessive use of colloquial English may make the conversation becoming more real (eg: ain't nothing, yknow, wassup)

• Limited themes, characters and responses: Using Dvolver for the first week in classroom could be fun; students, however, will eventually find it humdrum due to the limited selection of word limits and scenes it has to offer if used repetitively. 

• Accessibility: Dvolver and other ICT tools cannot operate without ICT facilities. Schools with no internet connection and proper computers or laptops may be at disadvantage.

• Time consuming: Dvolver could be a blessing and a curse; students with lower language proficiency and ICT skills may find it burdensome to compete the task in a given time while the advanced ones may find it too easy. 

• Cultural appropriacy: Some characters (eg: Hottie) are overly dressed and are regarded as overtly inappropriate in certain cultures. 

• Emotion and voice-lacking: No expression and voiceless animations. 

I'd say yes to Dvolver:

• Meaningful learning: Dvolver offers contextualized learning through various themes and characters which crucial for enhancing language acquisition. 

• User-friendly: Clear instructions and easy step-by-step-animation software. Learning is just a click away!

• Suitability and content-friendly: Dvolver accommodates almost all levels for students in all contexts. If summarizing an argumentative essay is too easy for upper intermediate learners, teacher can always adapt and improvise the lesson using other contents (eg: hunger / poverty documentary, petition or legislation).

• Cooperative learning: Dvolver as a medium for pairs and groupwork activities. 

• Multiple intelligences: Dvolver appeals to students with visual, inter and intra intelligences. 

• Free: No sign up, no membership fees - accessible to everyone! 

• Assessment: Dvolver could be used as a form of formative assessment where teacher could monitor the language progress of the students over time.

• Wider audience: Online digital storytelling empovers students to share their ideas in social networking mediums (eg: blog, facebook, tumblr) and gain wider readers.

• Autonomy learning: Since Dvolver's accessible to everyone everywhere at anytime, students could use this tool for independent language practice outside their classroom setting.

• Student-centered: Students will have a say in choosing their own themes and characters of their preferences - making learning more motivating and exciting.

• Creativity: Unleashing students' creativity and imagination and indirectly enhanced learning.

• Opportunity to learning: Bashful and quiet students who usually do not like the idea of speaking in front of the whole class are able to express themselves creatively via the movie animation.

Tips for Teachers:

1. Preview the entire process with the students first before assigning them to make their own Dvolvers. Teacher could point out any inappropriate characters which students are not encouraged to use as they are previewing. 
2. Encourage students to work in pairs or groups; it helps to lower their anxiety and fear of working alone and result to more communicative and effective learning.
3. Place sanctions to avoid the use of profanity and excessive colloquial language in Dvolver movies in students' works. Eg: One swearing = MYR 5.

My Rating on Dvolver's Usefulness:

4/5