Today we had a few breakout sessions. I attended the session on Layar. It is soooo cool. I am totally geeking out. The example we saw was from the Layar magazine and the developer on the front just came alive. It was like watching something from Harry Potter. We brainstormed ideas for the classroom. One of the best ideas that came up was to take a picture of textbook pages to add content to. Adding a sticker to that page to show students there is more to see. They could use their own devices or school devices to access the info. Another great idea was to have students record their presentations and then create a poster for their project. They then add a layar to their poster. Once all the posters are displayed, you've created a virtual museum that students and parents can then view on their own. Awe.S
0 Comments
We were given iPhoto for our iPads. It's pretty cool. I played with it today and found that you can make journal pages with it. It was pretty easy. I think this would be great for kids to use to spotlight themselves, or maybe a historical figure or even the process of something they learned. I also attended a class that gave great resources for royalty free music. Below is a list I also learned a little about making apps. I am excited to delve into that!
Personal Story When starting a digital story, start with a script FIRST and then storyboard. (This was contrary to how I was beginning, but it makes sense.) 1. Decide your topic 2. Gather materials 3. Begin writing your script -be real, don't hold back -be personal -look for a narrative arc I started with an outline for my digital story. I thought it would be difficult for me to write out a script. But I persevered. It wasn't as hard as I thought. Next I will sketch out the storyboard. Reading Discussion Questions:
1. What are the two specific elements essential for good storytelling that the author focused on in The Art of Digital Storytelling? What is good storytelling? The two elements discussed in the reading were Living in the Story and Unfolding Lessons Learned. Living in the story requires storytellers to not just tell the details of a story but to enrich the story with emotion. Telling the whole truth and not just a summary. When we add ourselves into these stories, others can connect and feel its importance as well. Unfolding lessons learned gives the story its depth. Without a lesson learned or "the point," viewers may lose interest and cannot make meaningful connections. It's a good idea to really ask yourself what the lesson learned is before telling your story so that you can reach your audience on a deeper level. This is good storytelling. 2. After reading Digital Storytelling Across the Curriculum, please list and explain three ideas of how you could use digital storytelling in your grade specific curriculum areas with your students. I really loved the idea of using digital stories for myths. In 5th grade, we study ancient Americans and the legends that were used to explain things in the natural world. Usually I have students write an "origin" for a modern thing like a cd player, ipod or shopping mall. Having students do this digitally might help them be more invested and put more effort into it. Another idea I had was to do a docudrama for social studies. Students could pretend to be one of the founding fathers interviewing a more recent president about the current state of the union and the changes that have taken place in the years between. The third idea I had was for science. Students can research an element and then present as if they were that element, highlighting its contribution to the world and some of its by products. What is Storytelling?
-Real or imagined events -Used to convey meaning, morality, cultural preservation, education and to entertain -Can be passed orally, through writing, and digital media "A human being is nothing but a story with a skin around it" -Fred Allen "The illiterate of the 21sy century will not be those who cannot read and write but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn" -Toffler "Tell your tales; make them true. If they endure, so will you" -James Keller 6 Elements of a good story: 1. Live inside your story -Share the story through your heart, not your head 2. Unfolding lessons learned 3. Develop creative tension 4. Economize the story -preserve the essence, use the shortest path -digital stories should be 3-5 minutes 5. Show, don't tell 6. Developing Craftmanship 7 Step Storytelling process: Pre-production 1. Writing the script 2. Planning the project 3. Organize project folders Production: 4. Recording the voice-over -should be created first 5. Gather, create and edit media resources -audio, video, photos -only include things that enhance story -be mindful of copyright Post Production 6. Create Rough cut first and Final cut last -add music last 7. Applause -cherish each and every story Storyboarding Great Resource: Storykeepers Resources (Storyboarding) Comic Life: iPad You can share super easily using comic life on the ipad. Using trays from the My Comics page, click the wrench and the option Open in Trays. Select the tray you want to connect with and drag the comic to it. Done!! To change the title of the comic, go to My Comics and touch the title until it brings up the keypad and type your title. To change the orientation of the page: click on the wrench and then doc setup. You can now change margins. If you flick the bottom right corner of the page, you will get more options. Here you can change the page size and the orientation. Comic Life resources: Comic Life resources Templates First off, I can't believe there are leeches in the Provo River! I have been in and out of there so many times! Gross! We tested the water quality on 4 different parts of the river. Between all of the different locations, most of the data was very similar. All of the locations met the water quality requirements. I was surprised that the urban areas weren't damaging or changing the river in a harmful way.
It would have been helpful to have had a map to help us get from site to site. It was kind of a fun challenge getting the data table and waypoints on the map. I added the waypoints but then didn't have the rest of the data table on the map, so I just added it as another layer. It worked great. It was also a challenge getting the data formatted correctly. One thing I didn't like about adding the second layer of data was that my points didn't lie directly on top of each other, so if you zoom in, the map points are side by side. (But i Before we started the tree study today, we learned that there are different ways to record latitude and longitude. We changed the settings on our GPS to be in decimal format, in order to easily upload the data to GIS. We learned that South and West are recorded as negative values in GIS. Once we were finished, we created an excel spreadsheet (.csv file) and uploaded the table to arcgis as a layer to the map. Here we could change the icons to better represent the data.
We had a really neat presentation on water glyphs by Cody Spendlove. It was totally fascinating. There is a website here. There are these circle symbols located all throughout the united states that have a line through them and dot somewhere near. Through their research they were able to find that, in most cases, it points to a water source or some other significant place (wild cat cave). They also showed us this cool map. He also talked about three rules: 1. Just because you found it, doesn't mean it was lost 2. Just because you don't know what it does, doesn't mean it doesn't have a purpose 3. Just because you know something, doesn't mean you have the right to share it. CMAP Class ~ Day 2 I really enjoyed hearing from the community partners. I think there would be a lot of support for teachers and students that wanted to try cmap. I mean how could you turn down a kid trying to improve his/her community. Other than that, I felt like there wasn't enough to do today and we spent a lot of time sitting around in a very hot classroom. I think the day should be shorter or we should do more. CMAP Class ~ Day 1
Ross said these first few days would be overwhelming, but, so far, it hasn't been. Maybe it's because I already geocache, so it's not all new information. I am really excited about the possibilities with the community mapping. I'd like to do some personal projects, like mapping areas of standing water in my neighborhood to then take to the city so that those areas can be fixed to abate the mosquito population. I'd also like to do ,ore with my students using the GPS. I've done an activity in the past using way points, but there seem to be more possibilities now. The old GPS units the district had we're really hard to use, these are very simple. I am planning on having my boys use it tonight when I get home. In a world drama: like iMovie some flexibility but very cookie cutter
My story: students can draw cover right in the app canadd photos from the camera roll. Can record their voice. Can open it in subtext! You don't have to have the app to open the books that are sent Story creator: (free) share on email or on Facebook. Not as many colors. Teleprompter (free) great for fluency practice can change the speeds. Great for podcasts or pecha kucha. Camera apps Camera+ (tap tap tap developer): can set focus and exposure. Has a stabilizer mode so it won't work unless you are still. burst mode takes series of shots Saves to a lightbox in the app. Cool effects. Camera awesome: has a sensor that tells you when you aren't straight on. Will do video as well. Camera editing. Snap seed : has frames and filters. Has some easy and great editing controls. Aviary: can take shots in app or pull from camera roll. Can add stickers. Remind 101: Add classes. Can send messages without sending your cell phone number. Gives a generic number that is only used for this app. Includes PDF to send home note. Can also be sent to an email instead of text. Can schedule it for later date or time. I have used this in the past, but parent support was minimal. I asked for suggestions from the group members and have a better plan for implementation next year. Poll everywhere: Can add to PowerPoint and have live answers Can download presenter to laptop Can change appearance of polls Two week storage if no account. I think this would be great for my lesson on the electoral college. Qr codes. I-nigma Best qr reader out there. It works so fast and easy. Can put in power points for kids to scan during a lesson for extra information. Can also be used for small groups as a self-guided study of a subject. It might be cool to do a mystery person and give clues and then they can scan the code to see if they were right. Make qr codes an inch square or bigger for easier reading Qrstuff.com Someone suggested recording students reading and adding the qr code to their report card so parents can hear them reading. I love that idea. Prezi: I have used Prezi before and LOVE it. I was under the impression though that they created templates that you had to use, but you can still start your own from a blank canvas. Great! I didn't know that you could import your already made Power Points to Prezi. It seems pretty seamless. You can also invite collaborators to work on the same Prezi. This doesn't seem like the best idea for 5th graders, unless one kid is working on it at a time because the changes aren't automatic like in google docs. 3D backgrounds looks like something I want to play with. Also, when you want to insert an image, you can search right in Prezi for images that copyright free. Awesome! You can animate the contents of the slides like a PowerPoint. For example, making words appear or disappear. You can also add background music to your Prezi. I think to each frame.
StoryJumper: This looks really cool. You can make it as "little kid-ish" as you want or add your own photos to make it more "serious." You can crop photos to make them fit into the preloaded pictures. I have used BoomWriter before and it seems like it is similar minus the option to vote on who wrote the best chapter. It also has a storyboard worksheet that the kids can fill out before they started typing. |
Teju Shearer
Technology has always been a part of my life. Archives
August 2013
Categories |