Workshops, info sessions, Pro-D offerings I have presented as a teacher and library coordinator. (As of August 2016, I began working as a district administrator in Surrey - see my other blogs for more current presentations.)
I met with Lauren and Spencer at Mitchell to plan a Fine Arts project using one of the laptop labs.
Our goal is to have students learn about a Baroque musician, explore some music from the period and then compose some simple "pseudo-baroque" tunes using Garage Band. We decided on a stations approach.
1) The Listening Station: Students can analyze some Baroque tunes by visiting the "podcast page" I've set up. (Here's another good site.)
2) The Composer Research Station: We will ask the teacher-librarian at Mitchell to help us pull some material for this station.
3) The Garage Band Station: The students begin by playing with some demo clips I put together for the activity. Braver souls can try composing from scratch. (I'll post some student samples once we get rolling.)
More: Assorted midi samples and handouts can be found here.
And I've put the student handouts up on Scribd. You can view and print them below:
I've been traveling around to the schools that have booked the portable lab and talking about set up and brainstorming. Having the iBooks in the school (in groups of 10 or 15) gives the teachers great opportunities to extend what they are doing in the classroom without having to move to the computer lab.
Earlier in the year, I was asked to give a Pro-D workshop highlighting some of the features of Word that can help make work easier for student and teacher alike. I created a Word document illustrating a number of "tips and tricks" and then we played with the document to practice each new skill.
My presentation outline, as well as the practice Word template download can be found here.
Kathy M and Sharron brought their Grade 2 classes to the computer lab today to learn about how to use ComicLife. (This fun program is installed on all the Macs in the district and provides lots of great opportunities for students to show their thinking.)
Because students import pictures rather than draw them on the screen, all students can see immediate, "professional" looking results. Budding artists can scan their drawings or hold them up to the Photobooth camera and import them easily.
We began by reviewing with the kids the various elements found on a typical comic book page: the panels, the pictures, the speech and thought bubbles, the "impact" words ("POW", "CRASH") and narration blocks. We asked the students to create a 4 panel page with a title in the first square ("What I Like"), and then insert three pictures of themselves: happy, happier and a little sad. Then they added a 2 speech bubbles and a thought bubble: "I like...", "I really like...", "But I don't like...")
Students had a lot of fun trying out the different options and experimenting with the program. (Plasq has just released a Windows beta that kids can try free for 30 days!)
Here's a sample I made to demonstrate: What I Like2
or
Here are a couple of "how-to" handouts (2 page and 6 page) that teachers might find useful: Comic Life Mini Manual
I met with Eve and Linda's Humanities classes today to introduce the project for their "Child Labour" unit. Students are researching some aspect of child exploitation in the modern world and tying it to the conditions of children in the Industrial Revolution.
We asked the students to imagine that they are coordinators of an outreach group that is trying to raise awareness about the plight of children working in difficult conditions. Each student will pick some aspect of the issue: carpet making, athletic shoes, exploitation, etc. After some in-depth research, the students will take on the role of an advertising agency tasked with marketing the human rights issue the student is targeting.
Students were asked to imagine that May is "Child Labour" month, and as part of a nation-wide campaign, they needed to produce a brochure (using Word) explaining the campaign issue, as well as a short, 30 second "spot" (using Animoto) that could be run on television and Youtube to raise awareness.
BROCHURE: The brochure is being produced using the "business forms -> brochures" template from within Word. In order to introduce the technology piece, we spent some time choosing a format and playing with inserting and manipulating images.
(Students were also given the option of downloading templates from the internet: sample set 1, sample set 2.)
Note: If Word seems too complicated, or the teacher is looking for a more straight-forward way to produce a flyer, check out the "Mybrochuremaker" site. Here's a sample made using this service: Child Labour Brochure
The 30 Second "Spot": We took the students to the Animoto site and had them create an individual account. Animoto will allow students to create professional looking flash movies that can be downloaded or posted to Youtube. They can upload pics from their computer or their Flickr or Facebook account. After picking the order of the images and adding text, they can pick music from a library of tunes or upload their own. Students can remix the project numerous times and then pick the best one for public viewing.
Once they are finished, they then email the embed code to their teacher so it can appear on the class blog.
Here's an example of Animoto in action from another project:
I met with Norma J and June L and Boyd today. We were putting the last few details on a "Top Ten" project June is planning for her Communications 11-12 class.
She and Norma have planned a reading activity using the Top 10 magazine series. Once they've had a chance to read and rate a couple of the titles, the students will be asked to generate their own ten winners in an area they are passionate about: food, cars, skateboards, singers, etc.
Here's the handout we will use to help them organize their project: TopTenHandout
For more detailed explanations on using iMovieHD, there is also a *great* tutorial for iMovie at on the U of Texas site. You'll find a webpage, with short video tutorials, and a link to an entire video walk-through as well as a handy PDF version to reference. Worth visiting. (Scribd version below)
Students were asked to do some pre-thinking and bring quotes, images (on a memory stick) and some text-text, text-self and text-world connections. In the computer lab, students were given an overview of Scrapblog, shown how to create an account, and turned loose on the project. (We gave them 2 blocks)
The students then presented the finished pages as a slide show. The beauty of using SB rather than PPT, according to the students, is the multitude of creative elements that they can use. If the student chooses one of the many templates available, then they can resize, copy and reuse all of the embellishments, frames, background, shapes and colours. Add to this, the ability to import your own pictures and graphics and you have a super tool for presenting your ideas.
Your resulting Scrapblog can be shared via email, or even embedded in an existing page. Because the project is stored in an individual student account, kids can work on it at home or at school, and the finished product can be viewed as a slide show with music, or "stepped-through" much like a ppt show. Students also have the option of exporting each page as a jpeg and printing or incorporating into another project.
I met with Catriona at McNeill to plan a "CSI-like" project in cooperation with two science classes. The goal is to have students create a website, where each student contributes a piece/page and the combined effort results in a "crime solving" website designed to show their learning.
FIRST CLASS MEETING My first step, after creating accounts for the students, was to meet with the classes and go over the "ins and outs" of Richnet. I used the site I had created earlier for McRoberts Day. (Here's the link.)
SECOND CLASS MEETING In a second session, I had the class apply for individual web accounts. The plan is to use their Richnet accounts to build their project webpage. (See sample screen shot below)
For each group, students created a common welcome page in each of their accounts, and then added their individual content page. The pages of the other group members were added as "bookmark" links created in the Bookmark folder on Richnet, and then dragged into the Webpage folder. Once the group members agreed on the order of their pages, visitors to any of the group members' site would see the same set of links, in the same order, with a common welcome page. (Last year, each group created their pages in a common Richnet account, but there were problems with work going missing or being deleted inadventantly. The advantage of creating the project in individual Richnet accounts and then linking them, is that each student is solely responsable for his/her individual page and doesn't have to worry about "cyber-vandalism" by a disgruntled group member.)
Dave G and I worked on creating a booktrailer for "Kat's Fall", the novel his Communications 11 kids are reading.
I demo-ed the the Coraline trailer I had created, and then previewed a few samples from the book-trailer sample sites I used with Krista's class.
In order to help the students focus their thinking, we asked them divide their "trailer" into 8 sections. Dave used a legal sized sheet folded to help organize their work (See below):They put images (or ideas for images) above, and words (or themes, or script) below. Using both sides of the paper gives the students a total of eight pairs of "panels" to work with.
For homework, they looked for images that matched up with their "organizer" and then began assembling them in iMovie. Adding music, sound effects and a voice over completed the booktrailer
The project gave the students an opportunity to share the themes and ideas they noticed in the novel in a fun and exciting way.
How do you sell a book to students when they are so tuned into video games and the latest DVD releases? Simple: sell the book like it was a movie!
And many publishing houses are doing just that! A quick search using "Book trailer" brings up a wealth of sites. (See below for additional resources)
Krista and I worked on this project with Grade 9/10 English students.
After reviewing her criteria with the group, students spent a couple of days collecting images, video clips, music and sound effects that they wanted to use in their creation. (Many students brought resources from home on a flash drive.)
The class was asked to keep track of where they found their images and clips so they could provide this information in the rolling credits at the end of the trailer. (Cutting and pasting URLs into a Word document works fine.)
I showed the students a demo that I had created based on the book "Coraline" by Neil Gaiman (see below) and then did a quick mock up showing them the steps I used:
Use your "script" to plan your images.
Load pics and clips into the Media Browser in iMovie.
Drag them onto the timeline in the order you prefer.
Narrate your trailer onto the top audio track. (You can break the narration into chunks by stopping and starting the recorder. That way, if you make a mistake you don't have to re-record the entire thing, just the offending part.)
Add sound effects, music and stingers to the bottom track. (They can overlap one another. If you want better control, the sounds can be mixed in Garage Band then imported into iMovie.)
Tweak and tweak some more: add transitions and effects. (But, remember, perfection is only for Hollywood, and multimillion dollar budgets.)
