Tomorrow, I will be taking 2 students to OSU so they can talk about their experiences as members of our after school writing club to the Columbus Area Writing Project Summer Institute. One of the main things they will be doing is sharing their glogs: the thinking that went into designing the glog, their choices in writing pieces, and their overall impressions of being able to work with a group of other students who enjoy writing as much as they do. Below are the glogs they will be sharing. You can see that they each tried some different techniques. Sarita used iMovie to embed into her glog. Colin created a collage of photography and recorded his voice reading one of his pieces. It’s sure to be a great afternoon and I can’t wait to take them there!
I stayed late tonight to help some of my after school writing clubbers finish their projects for our writing celebration Monday night. The glogs look great and I have to give a shout out to our technology teacher, because I couldn’t do it without her. I owe her a lot of biscotti!! It’s the first time that the only publication will be a digital one – the glogs. This is a huge paradigm shift for me. I keep thinking that I should have a book to give the kids. I wonder if the parents or kids will miss having a physical publication to hold.
The students have loved the digital project. As always, I wish we had more time to work on them. It’s been a little hairy having only 2 adults to work with 16 kids who all need attention at once (and one of the adults…me…was learning along with the kids). I would still do it again though. The kids were so enthusiastic and they each were able to express their individuality through their glogs. It’s been very fun to watch the whole process.
Things the kids learned to do:
Create a plan to use visual and audio components to complement their writing
Use Wordle
Take a screen shot
Upload photos and audio
Use Garage Band to record their voices
Embed sound into their glogs
Embed movies (only a few got to do this)
Think about the best way to represent each piece of writing
Design a layout that was appealing and made a statement about who they are
So, the glogs will be unveiled Monday after school. Each student will have the opportunity to stand up in front of the audience and share his or her glog as well as the thinking that went behind its creation. The process is the most important part!
I just finished watching all of the videos the kids have done for our oral history project. I am so proud of them! They all took on the persona of an interviewer. You can hear the authority in their voices as they ask questions and then ask more questions to get more details. They are also first graders…the camera gets clicked off amidst giggles, video that is so shaky it makes your stomach roll, and probably the best…L. asking his grandma what her favorite movie is after she shares a beautiful story about her great-grandmother from Puerto Rico who was a popular midwife.
One thing that came out of all of the videos is the love felt in these families. As I watched the grandparents’ and parents’ faces as they told their stories, I could see such a sense of pride. This project has become an opportunity for families to share across the generations and for my students to learn that even though we come from different backgrounds, we all have many things in common.
The stories are spectacular! Some made me laugh, some gave me goosebumps, and some brought tears to my eyes. Nobody has denied telling a story and some families even traveled to get stories from all the grandparents. J’s grandparents live far away, so her parents skyped the grandparents and they videotaped the interview.
Next, Melissa and I will sit with the kids individually to watch their movies with them. I’ve created a graphic organizer to help the kids organize their thinking so that they can write about the interview. After they write, I’ll record their voices, photograph their writing, and incorporate all of it into an iMovie. Our final celebration will be during the last week of school when all the families will be invited to see the movie and celebrate the important work the kids have done in this project!
Isn’t teaching all about reflecting on and tweaking our original plans? After the first oral history movies came back, we realized that some of the students didn’t quite understand that the interview questions should evoke a story, not a one word answer. So, Melissa and I modeled 2 different kinds of questions…one that requires a one word answer and one that invites the person being interviewed to tell a story.
My first question: “Mrs. Wilson, do you have any other brothers or sisters?”
Melissa: “Yes, I have 2 brothers.” (There’s no story here.)
Me: “Will you tell me a story about a time you had fun with your brothers or a time that they were annoying to you?” (This question allows the person being interviewed to elaborate.)
Melissa: “Let me tell you a story about a time that we lived in North Africa…”
I wanted the students to hear the words, “Will you tell me a story about…” I also tried to tie my question into the list of questions we originally created (think “My Rotten Red Headed Older Brother).
I’m interested to see what the latest videos bring back to us. One of the girls did get a wonderful story from her grandma about living on a farm when she was a small girl in Italy.
I’m supposed to be preparing for our teacher book talk tomorrow, but I couldn’t wait to share these pictures! Juan, an undergrad student came to visit us yesterday so we could practice asking interview questions before we took the cameras home. He told some wonderful stories about how his family came to the United States from Mexico. The kids had lots of questions about what school was like for him in Florida and what kinds of things his mom cooked for him when he was little. They also wanted to know about what kinds of books he liked to read. He shared an engaging story about how he liked to pretend he was Curious George and how he loved to climb trees when he was 6 years old!
Next, we divided the kids into small groups so they could learn how to use the iPods and mini-cams. It was one of those magical moments when all is going well and you know that you are doing something right! I had enough parent volunteers along with Juan and his friend and Melissa to work with the students. As they worked, I walked around, listened in to conversations, and took photos and video. Each child was engaged…deciding on what questions they wanted to ask (We typed up the list the students developed the day before), highlighting those questions, and then learning how to operate the iPod or mini-camera. Spanish was being spoken fluently at one table, at another table, one of my girls was learning that an interview involves asking the other person questions, not talking about yourself, another group of boys was learning how to change the batteries, and the other table was learning how to hold the camera still and keep the subject in the middle of the frame.
Today was the big launch day! 5 kids giddily walked out the door with either a mini-cam or iPod ready to interview their families this afternoon! Check out the Smilebox to see all the fun we had yesterday!
My students and I are so lucky to have a researcher in our room! Melissa came to me with another idea and I loved it! We are slowly plodding through the process as neither one of us has done anything like this with first graders (or any kids for that matter) and finding our way as we go. It’s been very exciting and the best part is coming up.
We are tying the Social Studies standards of learning about past and present as well as the similarities and differences in how different cultures meet human needs with using 21st century technologies to present information. I’ve been reading a variety of books about families. After each story, the students and I have added to our chart entitled Stories are Important to Families. We listed the kinds of stories we tell in our families. They include stories about our grandparents or parents when they were little, stories about special celebrations, stories about special places, stories about things that bring back memories, stories about a scary time, etc.
Tomorrow we will construct a list of questions that an interviewer might ask which will be attached to a letter we are sending home. On Tuesday, we will have a guest speaker who we will interview. Then the kids will get to practice with the cameras and iPods as they interview each other.
All of our hard work will come to fruition on Wednesday! We will be sending the children home with either a mini camcorder or an iPod Nano to interview their grandparents or other older relative over the next week and a half. We will then save each movie, create a DVD for each child and create an iMovie with everyone’s videos that I’ll also upload to my podcast server. The kids will also do some writing about their interviews that will be combined with their videos for their podcasts. If I can figure out how to combine these videos with Timeliner, that I’ll add that component too.
My kids have taken quite a journey this year as they’ve learned about informational reading and writing. I hope that I have given them the foundation that will propel them to always ask questions and search for answers.
Here’s a quick clip of my daughter sharing her memories of a favorite vacation. I was playing with the RCA Small Wonder camera trying to figure out how to convert the videos into files that could be read on my Macs at school.
The first grade stories are finally uploaded onto the podcast server! I saw a video clip from Bud Hunt about first grade stories being published digitally. I immediately went to our building tech teacher and told her I wanted to do the same thing. She had never used iMovie with first graders, but she was willing to jump in and make it happen. This project was huge and it wouldn’t have materialized if it wasn’t for Kathy (the tech teacher) and Betty (the media specialist). Added to their expertise were 4 other parent volunteers and the ELL teacher, along with me in the classroom with 24 laptops and 24 eager first graders.
Steps we took:
At the end of our personal narrative genre study, each child published his or her story.
Kathy and Betty came in and took digital pictures of the kids’ individual books (a photo of each page and the cover). The kids helped with the picture taking by holding their books flat.
Kathy downloaded the photos onto individual laptops and noted whose photos were on which laptop.
THE BIG DAY! Kathy and Betty brought the laptops to my room. I had asked 4 parents to help with the project (one was a grandma who had never used a computer before), as well as the ELL teacher.
The students logged in and brought up iMovie. Kathy had hooked up the Epson machine so she could project one computer on the screen and lead them through the process step by step.
All the adults worked together to record the students reading their books. We recorded one page at a time so that it would be easier to line up voice recordings with the photographs. We had kids and laptops everywhere…in the hall, the ELL teacher’s classroom, and my room.
Once all the voices were recorded, Kathy showed the kids how to bring their photos into iMovie from iPhoto. (At this point, the kids had reached their limit and they began to get very antsy. We decided to stop them here and have the adults sync the voices with the photos.)
Kathy, Betty, and I finished by lining up the photos and voice recordings. Everything was saved to my classroom server.
This project was very rewarding, but one that couldn’t have been done without the collaboration of several people. I am very thankful to Kathy, who is always willing to listen to my ideas and help me make them a reality. Thanks to Betty, who is always available to help out in these big projects, and the ELL teacher who changed her schedule to help us out. And finally, thanks to my wonderful parent volunteers who stepped out of their comfort zones to help us create this project.
Tomorrow will be the really fun day…showing the kids their wonderful work!
A small group of teachers met yesterday afternoon to talk about Troy Hick’s book, The Digital Writing Workshop. I love that our group represents teachers from different buildings, different grade levels, and different comfort levels when it comes to using technology in our classrooms. All of us have a love of learning and a love for what we do each and every day in our classrooms. One of the major topics of conversation was the importance of us, as teachers, taking time to actually explore and try the ideas presented in the book before we ask our students to do it. We are going to work slowly through the book, giving ourselves permission to play with some new ideas, make mistakes, and learn from each other. We are fortunate to have two of our district technology teachers be part of our group to help us on our journey. We are also going to set up a forum where we can ask questions and share ideas online so that we can stay connected between the times we meet face to face. I am so looking forward to this new study group and broadening my horizons when it comes to using technology with my students.
I just know that our technology teacher loves to get an email from me in her inbox! It usually goes like this…It’s late at night, I’m reading a book or looking at a website and I get an idea that uses technology, but I don’t know how to do it. So, I shoot an email to Kathy and say, “This is what I want to do. When can we meet so that we can plan it out?” She is always more than accommodating. Our latest project is creating an iMovie with my first graders using their personal narratives. I told them that they were the youngest class to create their own iMovies at our school, so they think they are pretty special (which they are!). (Thanks to Troy Hicks and The Digital Writing Workshop for the idea).
Kathy and I met this week to discuss the possibilities for my after school writing group of 4th and 5th graders. It always helps me to talk with Kathy to clarify my thinking. She takes my muddled ideas and shows me how we can make it work. She suggested that we use Glogster as the vehicle for the kids’ project. That way we can embed iMovie, a slide show, Wordle, etc. right into their digital scrapbook. She introduced me to a new site called Classtools.net that has several Web 2.0 applications that we can put into the glog. The animated book looks interesting to me. She also suggested Voki, which allows the user to create a speaking avatar that can also be used in the glog. The kids won’t do all of these things, but they will be able to look at the different options and decide which ones best meet their purposes.
What I do know is that I want the kids to have choice in their projects. I want them to explore some different genres as well as make choices about the visual and audio components of their piece. So, my homework is to explore these sites and solidify my plans for the final project. I’m not quite sure yet where it will take us, but it’s sure to be exciting!
As I mentioned in a previous post, our teacher writing group had the assignment to take a risk in our writing instruction. My goal was to publish some writing digitally. I have taken the podcast class twice (so I should have a little knowledge) and created some podcasts with the help of our technology teacher, but I have not done it all independently. I have been putting it off for a couple of reasons. First, I wasn’t sure how to manage the rest of the class while I recorded the kids’ voices and the biggest reason…time! Where do I find the time to take their pictures, record their voices, and put the podcast together? Well, as always, when I have a goal, I find a way to make it happen.
I decided to record their voices while they worked on illustrating their personal narratives (which we will be publishing using iMovie next month!). After explaining the importance of working quietly when they heard my signal, I got started. The kids did a great job! Each time I announced, “Recording,” the class quieted down and we were able to get most of the class done. The art teacher was kind enough to let me pull the rest of them out a couple at a time to finish up.
I went back to the directions I received in my podcast class, Googled for more information, and went to work. OK..I was at work pretty late that night and the next day, the technology teacher told me that I made a major mistake in putting the kids’ names in the chapter titles, but I did it! I fixed the chapter titles and republished it yesterday.
What did I learn? I learned to give myself permission to make mistakes (don’t we remind our students all the time that it’s OK to make mistakes?) and to be patient with myself as I learned a new skill. Plus, I am gaining confidence in myself in trying new things with technology. Google has become my best friend! Taking a chance with this project has stretched me and I’m ready to do it again. Next time, it will be even easier. Take a look at the wonderful research work being done by a great group of first graders.
