I am really excited about new things we learned this week. I really enjoyed using Animoto. It was so easy to use and I loved the outcome. I can see using this easily with my students. I would love to have my students take pictures of activities throughout the year and then make an animoto at the end of the year with their favorite activities.
I also enjoyed looking at the Pecha Kucha. I think it is a great idea to only spend 20 seconds on each slide. It makes the author narrow in on what is important and forces them to simplify their presentation. I am looking forward to creating one. I would like to create one for the beginning of the year slide show about classroom and playground rules. I would like to show pictures of what to do and what not to do and then have short comments for each. I was also thinking it would be fun to make slides of books I would recommend to my students and give a brief explanation of each.
I am struggling with how to use these two new digital story platforms in my reading class. I can think of tons of ways to use them for social studies and my computer class, but not sure how to use them in reading. Any suggestions?
I haven't yet gotten to our assignments for Animoto or the Pecha Kucha, and have to say that they have me a bit nervous. One of the big reasons that I am a bit frazzled by them is simply because of the amount of prep work that we have to do before doing the Animoto video (all the tutorials and reading bits). The Pecha Kucha is worrisome for me because I am not sure what I slide could keep me talking for 20 seconds because I am used to sharing information with my students and including them in the process. My fingers are crossed that I am just over thinking these two things and they will be easy to manipulate and put together.
ReplyDeleteWhile I can also see how these tools will fit in the areas of social studies and science, the first project ideas that pop into my head are for reading activities. We are really focusing on the students' understanding of main story elements from a piece of text. These tools could allow them to share that understanding by illustrating each element and writing a short explanation of what is being shown (along with support if needed). This could be developed over the course of the year to eventually get them to illustrate and share a complete summary/retell of a piece of text that they would read and record to accompany their illustrations.
Another idea would be to use it to compare and contrast, share and explain connections they may have to a piece of text.
I think that an end of the year Animoto will also be great. I acutally had my class help me make my project for the assignment.
ReplyDeleteAs for reading with the new platforms. One activity I do with some of my reading groups is to have them re-illustrate the book. They add new pictures and change ones that already there. They do this after we had a class discussion that they did not like the pictures that go with the story. They thought they could do better. So they draw a new picture or two and then read the chapter to the rest of the reading group while displaying their pictures. If you want --use voice thread for this kind of thing. You can also have documentation on reading ability then!
I think a Pecha Kucha would be a great way to teach a lesson to students about something like classroom or school policies. We all have experienced telling students about a rule or policy and having it go in one ear and out the other either because it was not engaging or they did not really think it applied to them. Creating a short and compacted slide show to model a rule would make it more powerful and meaningful.
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