Showing posts with label podcasting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label podcasting. Show all posts
Friday, April 10, 2009
Ideas for Your Classroom to Use Next Week
Above is an outstanding presentation for so many great ideas of ways to improve your classroom. I highly suggest panning through it and you will find your mind generating many cool ideas to use next week.
Labels:
21stCeturyLearning,
blog,
collaboration,
education,
internet,
podcasting,
presentation
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Podcasting Entry 4
I am simply amazed at how the students absorbed iMovie 8! This past school week was 3.5 days. There was really no time that I could meet with all the 4th grader experts and 4 teachers to show a new cool trick to the movie program. I was disappointed and wondered how this grade was going to accomplish the weekly news report podcasting task. They had taken the previous week off, since they had their ERB tests. The classes were allowed to work with the students on writing the script. So this past week they were to record about the testing week. None of the classes had emailed me on when we were going to meet, and I was floored with my other techie duties to email them with reminders. Then suddenly on Wednesday, late morning, a kid came into my office and asked if I could come down and help out with the recording. This specific class had only made one video before and I thought that "helping" was going to be very time consuming. When I got to the room the experts had the computer open but not much more. I showed them how to find the program, reviewed how to capture the footage, and then stepped back and allowed the experts to teach to this week's reporters on what to do. They recorded twice. Then the experts showed how to edit the footage, make the new project, taught the newbies about how to make and tweek the title card, and how to add the two transitions. It was pretty simple. The experts had really caught on with only one time of me teaching them! The little sponges! :-) Since they had impressed me with how well they had learned everything I was inspired to figure out with them sitting there how to add a little intro and wrap it up music. We dove into the iLife music packages and found what we liked. Together we figured out how to drop the music in the area we liked, and trimmed the music some. They loved it! After 45 minutes I walked out of their room with the finished project for me to upload to the PDS Podcast page.
Now for the really impressive part! Later that day and on the half day Thursday, I had the 3 other classes come ask for my help. I couldn't help. I was swamped. I was sorry, but then said to go ask the expert boys I had helped earlier. The experts were on Cloud 9! By Thursday mid morning I had the 2 laptops with finished projects on my desk to upload. This new teacher being the facilitator, students being the teacher worked! Without my being there and available, the students utilized eachother's knowledge and blossomed! I am so proud of the work they produced. I am amazed at how easy this task was accomplished. I am pleased with the ownership and "impressed and proud" of themselves feeling these 8 to 9 year old students expressed.
Here is the link to the PDS Podcast page. The latest podcasts are 4C, 4D (Quicktime link not working but will be fixed on Tuesday) and 4A TV - February 11. 4B finished also, but I did not have a chance to send that file up to the podcast page yet. 4D class was the first class, and the class that became the experts for the other 4th grade classes.
(Side note: One of the experts from the 4D class brought his personal laptop to school on Thursday. He recently had a birthday party and wanted help on making his video. He and I played around, showing him how to search on the Internet for free music downloads, download it to his laptop, insert that sound wave on to his movie, and tweak the volume levels of both the music and audio on the live footage. I can't wait to see what he did over the weekend with this!)
Friday, January 30, 2009
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.
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.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Podcasting Entry 2
The assignment: to create weekly podcast of what is going on in the classroom for grade 4 - 4 separate classrooms involved.
The plan:
1. We choose 2 kids per classroom to become the experts. They will be in every session training the other students.
2. I will be teaching them how to create a movie in iMovie 8. Originally we had made the movies in iMovie 6 because that is the program I know and am comfortable using. But then I started to realize that if I am going to go through a several week process in teaching these guys iMovie then I'd better teach them the newer program. Plus, the teachers who are involved don't know iMovie 6 like the back of their hands, so I can start from scratch with them too. And since I have only poorly, by chance made 2 movies in iMovie 8 then we are all pretty much at the same learning level. (I actually told the boys that we are all like working like PreKindergarteners because we are new to all of this. They laughed.)
The implementation:
Today I will have helped 2 classes just video themselves using the iMovie 08 and built-in iSight camera. The teachers wrote the script, but I am leading them into having the students write the script as a whole group. (Teach the writing process!) My administrator is calling this a great authentic assessment.
By tomorrow afternoon I will have worked, at one time, with 8 students and 4 teachers, teaching the most basic of the iMovie 08 skills. We will edit out the footage that we don't want. Add a title card. Maybe a fade in and out transition. But no music, no special effects. Then next week we should be first graders with our knowledge of the program. I will blog and share the link to the end product hopefully Friday or Monday...most likely Monday.
The plan:
1. We choose 2 kids per classroom to become the experts. They will be in every session training the other students.
2. I will be teaching them how to create a movie in iMovie 8. Originally we had made the movies in iMovie 6 because that is the program I know and am comfortable using. But then I started to realize that if I am going to go through a several week process in teaching these guys iMovie then I'd better teach them the newer program. Plus, the teachers who are involved don't know iMovie 6 like the back of their hands, so I can start from scratch with them too. And since I have only poorly, by chance made 2 movies in iMovie 8 then we are all pretty much at the same learning level. (I actually told the boys that we are all like working like PreKindergarteners because we are new to all of this. They laughed.)
The implementation:
Today I will have helped 2 classes just video themselves using the iMovie 08 and built-in iSight camera. The teachers wrote the script, but I am leading them into having the students write the script as a whole group. (Teach the writing process!) My administrator is calling this a great authentic assessment.
By tomorrow afternoon I will have worked, at one time, with 8 students and 4 teachers, teaching the most basic of the iMovie 08 skills. We will edit out the footage that we don't want. Add a title card. Maybe a fade in and out transition. But no music, no special effects. Then next week we should be first graders with our knowledge of the program. I will blog and share the link to the end product hopefully Friday or Monday...most likely Monday.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Starting Out Podcasting week 1
4 of my teachers have been instructed to have students generate a weekly podcast of what is going on in their classes. Like a "toot your own horn" as my administration put it. The teachers are doing fabulous things, and want the parents to know! So my job is to train the teachers and students how to do this till they can do it on their own. I am going to log my journey, but let's catch up with what already has happened.
Week 1 - 4 teachers - - one podcasted...well I did it. The teacher wrote a script for the boys to read. We used a student laptop with a built-in iSight camera and iMovie to record their "news report". The teacher watched and saw how to record, but was more of a bystander than active participant. Then I took the laptop, edited the footage and built the movie.
Week 2 - 4 teachers - - one podcasted...well I did it again, and it was the same teacher. We used the same program and tools, and will always use them unless we master them and I feel like taking the Garageband approach to podcasting. The teacher wrote the script, but assisted with video taping. Yeah! The students were the same 2 from the previous week, I think... After the taping, I editted and built the movie.
Week 3 - 4 teachers - - TWO podcasted! YEAH!
Teacher 2 wrote the script and helped with the directing, but did not help with the taping (starting and stopping the recording). Then the students sat with me and watched me edit and build the movie for the podcast.
Teacher 1 wrote the script and had the boys record the report before I got to the classroom. There were 4 boys this time (2 from the previous weeks, and 2 new ones). I began to build the movie, but stopped, got up, and parked one of the boys in my seat. Together the students built their movie. I taught them how to edit the footage, split the clips, extract their flubs, record a voiceover, add a title card, add headlines, add transitions. They were pretty ancy by the time we added the little intro and exit song, but were awed over watching me do that part. I told them next time that they would learn more of the "sounds" part. That started the whole discussion of how we were going to help the other students. The small group and I decided that the these 4 were going to become the experts on movie making. I am going to request that they be incharge of next week's movie/podcast. I told them that I don't want to come until they have recorded, editted, and added the titles/headlines and transitions. When that is all done they can get me, I will do final editting touches and teach the sounds part. They are thrilled! We even discussed them being the experts for the other 3 classes. Peer teaching. I can't wait for this group to get to take their laptops home in 6th grade. If they really dive into this project, they are going to be crazy fun by 2 years! Oh the projects they will be making and showcasing! The poor 6th grade teachers, how will they challenge them then? :-) Here is the podcast/movie that was created with this group.
Week 1 - 4 teachers - - one podcasted...well I did it. The teacher wrote a script for the boys to read. We used a student laptop with a built-in iSight camera and iMovie to record their "news report". The teacher watched and saw how to record, but was more of a bystander than active participant. Then I took the laptop, edited the footage and built the movie.
Week 2 - 4 teachers - - one podcasted...well I did it again, and it was the same teacher. We used the same program and tools, and will always use them unless we master them and I feel like taking the Garageband approach to podcasting. The teacher wrote the script, but assisted with video taping. Yeah! The students were the same 2 from the previous week, I think... After the taping, I editted and built the movie.
Week 3 - 4 teachers - - TWO podcasted! YEAH!
Teacher 2 wrote the script and helped with the directing, but did not help with the taping (starting and stopping the recording). Then the students sat with me and watched me edit and build the movie for the podcast.
Teacher 1 wrote the script and had the boys record the report before I got to the classroom. There were 4 boys this time (2 from the previous weeks, and 2 new ones). I began to build the movie, but stopped, got up, and parked one of the boys in my seat. Together the students built their movie. I taught them how to edit the footage, split the clips, extract their flubs, record a voiceover, add a title card, add headlines, add transitions. They were pretty ancy by the time we added the little intro and exit song, but were awed over watching me do that part. I told them next time that they would learn more of the "sounds" part. That started the whole discussion of how we were going to help the other students. The small group and I decided that the these 4 were going to become the experts on movie making. I am going to request that they be incharge of next week's movie/podcast. I told them that I don't want to come until they have recorded, editted, and added the titles/headlines and transitions. When that is all done they can get me, I will do final editting touches and teach the sounds part. They are thrilled! We even discussed them being the experts for the other 3 classes. Peer teaching. I can't wait for this group to get to take their laptops home in 6th grade. If they really dive into this project, they are going to be crazy fun by 2 years! Oh the projects they will be making and showcasing! The poor 6th grade teachers, how will they challenge them then? :-) Here is the podcast/movie that was created with this group.
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About Me
- Mrs. Smith
- I have been in education since 1996 and never taught without technology!