Literacy Project

Please go to the link below to find my finished lesson plan for my literacy project.  The experience itself was certainly worthwhile and has had a lasting effect on my students.  We will continue to use kidblog in the future to enhance our literary experience!

Literacy Project Lesson Plan

The Digital Story Finale!

I am officially finished with my digital story.  This has been a long process because I became a stickler about matching the voice to the slides precisely. Please enjoy this beautiful piece of work!

Reflection on the experience:
This process was a bit more tedious than I expected.  I really became very concerned with matching the images to the narration precisely.  Once I realized that you can expand each image for certain time frames, the process became much easier.  I really enjoyed taking the time to share this experience in a digital story format.  In the process of completing this I realized that none of the teachers actually take time to photograph the students creating the vessels!  We are typically so hands-on with helping the students that we don't think to take pictures. 

Peer Reviews:
My classmates are really impressed with the video that I have created and said that my narration works really well with the images. You can view their original responses to my first attempts at completing this project on my previous blog posts:

Thoughts of a Proud Woman: Digital Story Start Up

What I Would Do Differently:
I don't think that I would do anything differently.  This was a learning process, so now I know certain tips and tricks that will make creating the next digital story much easier.  For example, how to increase the length of a particular image so that it fits my narration, not adjusting my narration so it fits the image time frame! In the future I would like to use digital storytelling with my students to help them summarize texts that we are reading.  I think this would be a fun way to practice a literacy skill that is sometimes a struggle for my students. 

Kidblog-aholics!

 

My students have officially become blog-aholics!(Click the pic above to see what I mean)  I have integrated blog posting into our weekly center work and the kids are really enjoying it.  What I also enjoy about kidblog is that it allows you to see the location of people that have viewed your blog.  Interestingly enough we have had visitors from as far away from California and Texas look at our blog posts.  Although only my students and other classes that I approve can reply/comment on our posts, seeing that other people from around the country are interested in what my students have to say have inspired them to write even more!  What I would like to continue working on is my student's ability to reflect on and reply to other student's blog posts.  They are still in a "the sun revolves around me" kind of world. This is such a cool way to get students involved with technology while practicing literacy skills! 

 

Check out Elena's blog to find out more about how to use the Kidblog App at

 "5th Grade is Fun (Really, I Promise!): There's An App for That!"

 

Help!

Ok, so I've figured out how to input the pictures, the audio and narrate the clip.  However, I can not use audio and narration at the same time in Moviemaker. As of right now, my narration goes along with the pictures and the audio won't play until the very end, so frustrating! Anyone have any helpful suggestions?

Free Music for Projects

As I've been working on the various assignments for this course I have come across an issue with music.  All of the music that I currently own has lyrics or is slow moving jazz that doesn't necessarily fit with what I'm working on.  Additionally, I want my students to begin to use some of this media to create their own projects and would like them to have access to music they like as well.  So, I went on a mission to find some websites that might provide some variety and came across these free websites.  Please be sure to utilize the rules listed in Elena's post about copyrighting here.  Click on the picture to check out the site and let me know if it's beneficial for you!

Digital Story Start Up

Digital Story created with

Windows Movie Maker

So, I've made digital stories before, but only for friends and family.  I have never made one that included narration and am struggling a bit with this task.  It's tricky to talk at a rate that isn't too fast or too slow.  The storyboard helped a little, but when it came down to it, the timing of my plan was off so I had to go back to the drawing board.  For now, here's my sneak peek, no narration or sound yet :)

Diigo

Diigo is an interesting website.  I like the idea, and it's definitely beneficial. I have been using the library in Edmodo because it allows me to share the websites directly with my students.  Diigo is much more organized and allows you to do much more.  I didn't quite realize how much more until I searched for some videos that might help me fully understand the benefits within the program.  This is what I found:


Although it is very basic, it led me to some questions, such as:  How do I get that bar across the top of my screen?  How do I find friends to connect with?  Once I work through these mini bumps, I'm sure Diigo will become a much more useful tool for me.

For your perusal: My Diigo Page