Podcasting Entry 3

OH JOY!!! It all came together and I am elated! There is still fine tuning, but it is working.

The classroom teachers wrote the scripts with student input. This needs work. Here is what I envision...

The class has like a bulletin board or the back of the classroom door where anytime they come across something that they want in the PDS podcast they'll jot it down on a post-it note and stick it on this board. The boys can do this at anytime, maybe something funny happened at lunch, or had a great activity that they liked in art. Maybe a boy won an award. Maybe someone needs prayers for his grandma. Maybe they learned a cool math trick. Whatever they want. Then there is a set day, every week where the class has a pow-pow and they take all the stickies and organize them into categories. Then using, Inspiration, or some web / graphic organizer, they (as a whole group) web out the meat of their news report. The teachers takes this Inspiration web, projecting onto the Smartboard, and shows the Outline feature. Then the class talks about order words, adjectives, etc, and turns their blurbs into sentences. Finally, they copy and paste their outline sentences onto a word document and print out the scripts. Then the 2 chosen news reports practice in front of the class. The class gives feedback, when to give an example, something funny or witty to add, maybe a like acting to spice up the report. The reports jot notes on the printed script. They also can higlight what they have to say using a marker. Another practice..and they are ready to record.

So now my part (the tech coach intervention):
The filming:
This week I used iMovie 08 (Can you believe there is an 09 out already! I am so behind!) gritting my teeth as I unlearn iMovie 6 tricks. I made this move because this put everyone at the same learning curve. I worked with each class on how to find and launch the program. How to turn on the iSight camera and use it to record. That's it. That was all I did with my 2 experts who will work with me always, and my 2 news reporters that will change out each week.

The editting:
Today all 8 kids and 4 teachers met with me to edit their movies. I introduced them to the outline of iMovie 08, what each panel was. Then I showed them how to edit the raw footage. The teachers' eyes were crossed but the kids caught on with a snap! We had to quit clicking when wanting to play the movie, because clicking selects the frame to allow you to edit. That was the hard part, but like I said, the kids had NO problem.

Once editting the raw footage was done, we moved the clips up to the project area and added a title card infront of the movie. This creates a black card. I showed them how to change the font, color, size, etc. The kids want me to figure out how to make the card not black. (So students are giving me homework now, huh?!) We also, as a group, brainstormed images / photos that we could use for the title card...like a news logo or something.

After the title, we add one transition between the title card and footage, and one at the end. I showed them how to set the length of the transition..worked like a charm! That's it! All done! I grabbed the laptops - shared the movies as Quicktimes for an iPhone and threw them up on our school's webpage. :-) What a great way to end the week!

Next week: I am going to show them how to add title cards in throughout the footage to say like MATH, or Way to go JOE! when announcing specific things. I will give them more time on adding transitions between these diffent video parts. Showing them how to upload sections of the footage at a time in order to split the video (command T in iMovie 6...I will give up my love for that program soon enough). They are DYING to learn about adding song. I think in 2 weeks they will need to come with a jingle that they will always use at the beginning and ending of their report. (An example is Mrs. Love wants The Beatles, "All You Need is Love" snippet on her videos.)

Come look at what we created by clicking here. All the podcasts that I am referring to are called: 4_-TV January 29.