GFS: My Life as a Writer

GFS 4th grade teachers, Mrs. Dimock, Ms. Krzyzek, Mrs. Theiss, and Mrs. Walsh, with technology teacher, Sally Wanamaker worked with each student to create a PhotoStory entitled, "My Life as a Writer." Recently, Sherry Black, technology teacher, posted all of the student projects to Blackboard. The following information was sent home to parents to explain the project:

In January and February the students planned the content of their digital story using a storyboard with their classroom teacher, and brought their plans to computer class. In computer class, the students created their illustrations for each slide using several different methods. They used drawing tools in PowerPoint/Max Show and saved the illustrations as jpegs so they could be used in their digital story. They also searched for their favorite author’s picture using Teachingbooks.net, and added clipart where appropriate.

Students then created slides using Microsoft’s Photo Story 3 software, inserted all of the illustrations they created, and typed in their captions, paying attention to slide layout and appropriate font style, size and color. The next step was to record their voices reading the script that they had created in their storyboard plan with their classroom teachers. When they were sure that their recording was clear and understandable, they added music that complemented their recording but didn’t compete with it. Lastly, they added custom transitions and animation to enhance their show.

The students had the opportunity to complete a rubric to assess their performance. Their performance on this project was also assessed by their computer teacher.
We wanted to give you a chance to see these projects, so we have posted them on their secure Blackboard site so that they may share their project with you, as well as share the attached rubric with you.

This is one sample of a student's final digital story, "Bryan's Life as a Writer." (The student's image and full name have been removed from this version of the final product.)

CMS: French Class in the LMC

John Horrigan, LMS and Sharon Gardner, French teacher, co-taught an 8th grade French class at CMS. During 6 sessions, students researched a province in France utilizing a variety of print and online resources following a project description and rubric. They synthesized the information to create a coherent, interesting and informative story, harvested images to support their narration, created a digital story in Photostory and created a written handout to explain the final presentation. All students used Noodletools to create Works Cited Pages, citing all sources used in the creation of the final projects.

The following is one student's final Photostory project:

SHS: Podcasting in an Audio Production Class

Jim Honeycutt, Media Teacher at SHS, challenged the students in his audio production class to listen to and create a review for a favorite commercial CD recording. All students used GarageBand (on the Mac) to produce a podcast of the review. Working with GarageBand allows the insertion of images in the podcast. The sample below by Steve and Will is a review of the 1996 alternate rock album, Beck! Odelay. It is 17 minutes and 53 seconds long.

Jim said, "It was a terrific project for me since students who are not necessarily musicians are now able to create something using audio tools and derive a good deal of personal satisfaction in doing so." He also noted that many skills are used in the creation of these podcasts, including research (in this case, about the musical groups), capturing of images, organizing the information, synthesizing it into a logical presentation and using technology (in this case GarageBand) for production.

Podcasting has many relative advantages. Using tools like GarageBand and Audacity, students can practice their research, writing, synthesizing and presentation skills with a final product that can be posted to Blackboard, a wiki, or a teacher's FirstClass account.

SHS: A Revolutionary Harvest

SHS teachers, Cathy Schager (Social Studies) and Michael Fulton (English), collaborate together in an honors course for 10th graders called COLLAB, short for U.S. History/English Collaborative.

A recent project, The Revolutionary Harvest: Using the Digital Story for Reflection, was designed to have students analyze and synthesize their last unit of study on the American Revolution. Students were asked to provide an in-depth and personal reflection on a topic where they were impacted by one of the two class texts: A People’s History by Howard Zinn and Birth of the Republic by Edmund Morgan.

Students were told that this was a creative project that would involve their use of art, music, and writing to create an insightful look into their struggles with the texts about the Revolutionary period in American history.

The students were asked to explore the topic as historians by finding at least one primary source document on the topic. They had to create a digital story to walk the viewer through their understanding of the American Revolution based on their exploration.

Students were required to cite all of their images and music, as well as citing Morgan, Zinn and whatever primary source material they used. The final citation could be in the presentation and/or provided in written form.

Students were asked to use PhotoStory, but they could use any other digital storytelling software (such as iMovie, Final Cut Pro, or MovieMaker) as long as they saved the final version as an .avi or .wmv file in the class dropbox.

Here are two examples of the students final work (Thank you James and Tori):

KHS: 5th grade Students Use Multiple Formats to Present their Synthesized Research

On Monday, Dec. 22nd, Kings Highway 5th grade students taught their parents and other visitors about what they learned from their research of specific topics related to their study of ancient Egypt.

Ali Moran (classroom teacher) and Aimee Anctil (library media specialist) had collaborated to work with students for 6 weeks on a Social Studies unit exploring the Cultural Universals as they appeared in ancient Egyptian culture.

Students used print and digital resources to research their chosen topics. They selected the ITL tools that they thought would best help them teach their topic to a group of visitors.

Students utilized wikis, PowerPoint, Notebook Software, and PhotoStory3 -- often connecting two or more of these products -- to engage their audience in their topics and research questions.

Many students created quizzes to assess the level of understanding of their audience members using some of the templates in the SmartBoard Activity Toolkit in Notebook Sofware. The Photostory project embedded below was created by one student to explore the arts, sports and leisure activities in ancient Egypt. This creative "commercial" was shown in segments during the ancient Egyptian sharing in the library media center.