Surf-n-Sing by Autumn

Autumn is 9 years old. Her creativity was just waiting to be unleashed and I think that I helped. I tried to keep in mind the whole time, "This is Autumn's movie, not mine. Let her decide what to do." So I gave her alternatives, I would think ahead of time where the movie and ideas were going, come up with some possible scenarios and lay them out for her. However there were a few times I left it completely up to her. Which is how we came up for the idea for the fish puppet show. To prepare before we worked and to ensure things ran smoothly I would make sure I read again what we were going over, have open and ready our resources, and anything else we might need. The overall experience was great.

Autumn's talents

So I was a little nervous at first starting this project. I thought how am I going to guide this student and show them what I have learned in a way they will understand. But it turned out to be pretty easy. As soon as I started asking questions she caught right on, it was awesome. I was trying to keep the whole thing very casual. I didn't want this to seem like homework, I also kept in consideration that it is summer and all of her siblings and friends were outside playing while she was inside working with me. But after a few minutes of talking I realized that she was loving the attention and she really seemed to enjoy being able to talk and express herself.

I started by asking some simple questions; What do you like to do? Do you enjoy music? Do you have a favorite game? She answered that she likes to surf and she likes to sing. I then explained to her the essential and unit question (She had to stop me a few times to explain what a couple of words mean). I really wanted her to come up with these questions herself, so I asked How do you feel when you sing and you surf? So is it the same happiness for both? Does your singing have any impact on the way you surf? With these questions she was able to come up with her essential and unit question. I really tried to use inquiry-based learning by asking open ended questions that allowed her to explore and think.

Autumn's blog

Parent permission: My students name is Autumn Sandel, the daughter of Scott Sandel who is also in this class he gave his permission and is also having another one of his daughter's work on this project with him.

Spreadsheets

One of my unit questions asks, "What can you do to better the environment?". I thought this could be a perfect activity to incorporate the use of spreadsheets and graphs. My sample spreadsheet shows how much water is used to produce plastic, textiles, food, and energy for one day and how much is used per person. My sample illustrates how much water my household uses daily, how much water I use individually, and how much the average American uses daily. I did this by calculating my "water footprint"Using this sample students will answer the following questions:
1. Why is water important?
2. In what ways do we use water?
3. If you can challenge yourself, how long will it take for you to reduce the amount of water you use?

I believe that these questions are inquiry-based because they are open ended, there is no specific right answer. Each questions asks the students to think and discuss with each other, and listen to others ideas.

After the students have researched and implemented ways to conserve water they will make a second graph showing the difference from the first graph.

Breaking the movie maker code

My movie started with a dim light far away in the distance that I could barely see as I came closer it got farther, if that makes any sense. Finally just as I was about to turn around and accept defeat it became clear. The tools I used were powerpoint, and moviemaker(obviously). I used powerpoint to edit photos and add my quotes. In powerpoint I used a transparent box over my text to give an extra effect on one of my pictures. In movie maker I added a title and credits page for a more finished look. I also added some page transitions to my clips. I used the narration buttons to record my narration. I then imported my music from and clicked and dragged where I wanted it to be (a background to my narration), the fade in and out buttons came in handy for both audio and pictures.

I had the most difficulty with the sound. I narrate through certain parts of my movie and the whole thing has music in the background followed with a song at the end during the credits. Trying to figure out how loud, and where, and at what times everything had to mesh was frustrating, however rewarding once it was complete.The goal of my movie is to show what people, organizations, music influence me and who I am or who I want to be.

My movie starts with a quote from plato and then shows two clips of me reading, here I tried to use the rule of three where my eyes are on the top line. I obviously took these pictures myself. I then transition to what I plan to do with my love of reading (teaching) and I actually say that "I want to see the world". I then show a peace corps symbol and narrate a quote from Madeline L’engle one of my favorite children and yound adult authors. I then have a quote from Kurt Vonnegut another one of my favorite authors. I then narrate that "although I want to see the world there are plenty of issues here". I then show a video clip and two pictures of the Las Brisas energy plant protest. In the video I use panning as I am trying to show the march from a 360 degree angle from the camera.

In my pictures of the protest I took medium shots, where you can still see the background behind the subject but the subject is the focus. I end with a picture of Bob Marley who is one of my all time favorite artist. His song "One love" seems to sum up my movie perfectly.

In my future classroom I can see using movie maker in a variety of ways. However frustrating it may be, I do believe with practice it will become a useful tool. For example I would use it at the beginning of a whole unit. My movie could introduce the unit with a story that relates to the lesson. I could show students from previous years doing the same lesson to show examples of what the finished product will look like. I could use movie maker as a class project where every student has a part they created. Maybe when it is finished it will be shared with a penpal.

7 elements

For this mini-project, my students will create a powerpoint showing what people, culutres, or organizations influence them. Therefore their digital story will be a personal narrative and a informative story. The audience is looking into the soul of the student, finding out what makes them tick. You should be able to see what the student is motivated by and what issues the students is concerned with. To really convey thier personality to the audience each student will make at least one statement, and will have music of their choice in the background. The story will be based on images of people, places, and music. Each scene will last no longer than a few seconds. The idea is to gain a understanding through the whole story of who the student is.

Slideshare

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Ok, obviously digital storytelling was completely knew to me. After a significant amount of research I discovered that the overall concept is not that hard to understand. VoiceThread, slideCast or slideShare (digital storytelling) are all ways that anyone can use to communicate. That sounds very broad, and thats because it is. You can basically use these in anyway that best suites your need. Digital storytelling is a way for people to express themselves through technology in the form of a story. Their story can have music or voice sound, images, or text.

For me, in my future classroom, according to my unit plan (What impact do I have on the world?)using voiceThread would be perfect. Students could connect and communicate with different classrooms from across the world. This would be highly more significant than only blogging, or writing letters. In this form they could actually hear the other students voice while being able to see them at the same time. Talk about incorporating the multiple intelligences. SlideCast and SlideShare, could also be used in this way. Students could be assigned a topic to discuss, or a group question for the other class and help construct (by choosing pictures, recording voice, or choosing music) a VoiceThread, SlideShare/SlideCast they would like to share.

Hopefully being connected to other students of different cultures will help them to have a better understanding and tolerance of differences among people but mostly to understand how much alike we really are.Using these tools in other aspects of the classroom would be applicable also. For VoiceThread I could design a video, or music clip, or motivational prompt that would jumpstart a group discussion in order to introduce a new lesson, activity or book. SlideShare/SlideCast could be used to show pictures of students from previous years demonstrating a future activity for the class. Then when students finish the activity it is their turn to demonstrate for students next year.
Activity plan

Internet Resources

I had no idea that one topic could expand to be so broad. When I first started exploring through the notes in this session, I was a little skeptical and hesitant. I thought, how much information could I possibly find through these resources on only one unit topic. I was wrong. There is so much out there. Where to begin?? To start with my students will use internet search engines to research influential people (influential to the student), this includes biographies, pictures, or any information that pertains to that person. Through Google's customized search engine, I would carefully analyze and choose the pages that would be available for the students to see.

For project e-mails, epals is a great place where teachers can go and find a classroom through focus areas such as "human rights" or projects like "the way we are" I believe that having students have a classroom pen-pal from a distant country would be ideal. Maybe instead of having each individual student write to a pen-pal. The teacher can correspond for the entire class to another teacher. Reading each letter to and from the other classroom outloud. This activity alone could lead to so many projects.

Blogging will be an integral part of this unit. Students will need a place where they can reflect on the research they have done, and what it means to them. They will also be working in groups for a project on helping the environment. The students will collaborate through wiki sharing ideas and leaving comments, including suggestions for ideas through links.

To go to these sites directly please go to my works cited page which has these links and much more on information, videos, and images.

Incorporating the internet