Sunday, June 19, 2011

Group Leadership Project: Final Presentation

video

What tool did your group use to deliver the PD tutorial? Why?

Power Point was used to input the images with some text so specific images could be seen in still view. Capturing the audio and screen was done with Jing and then Audacity was used to remove excess noise. Then the editing was done with Camtasia Studio. A free trial was downloaded and edited and published from there. This program was used because of the resources of being able to work with both the audio and visual aspects of the presentation and a free trial was available.


What did you learn during the development process of the final product?

I learned that there are many program available to capture screenshots and videos. You just need to figure out what works best for you and more than one can be used such as seen with our final presentation. Jing only allows so much video time to be recorded but you can add arrows, highlighting and shapes. Screencastomatic allows for longer videos to be taken but there is no editing of the sound or images. It can be saved to You Tube and as a mp4 document. Camtasia Studio allows free trails and both the image and audio can be edited. Audacity allows for editing of sounds and recording of sounds but not with images. I feel that I know have more tools in my tool belt when working with recording of screenshots and videos.

What would you do differently if you had to develop a similar product again?

If I had to develop a similar product I would work on making a better storyboard and script. We used Google Docs and the main purpose for this was so that the whole group could share, contribute, and edit together. However, when inputing images they were then unable to be copied and pasted to another document such as a Power Point. Group members needed to share out their images through uploading them to an email. Also, moving slides around on Google Docs was time consuming and a times the program froze and some text was lost. It was hard to select a large amount to be moved. I would look online and on blogs to find a better program to make a storyboard on to prepare for a final presentation that had audio, videos, and still images with some text.

Saturday, June 18, 2011

Wicked Project Final Presentation

video

1- Introduction
My wicked project was on using digital storytelling to help support the writing process.
2- Problem
The problem was not only in my classroom but also throughout the whole school as seen through MEAP scores that students were lacking in the areas of ideas and organization in the writing process. They do not stick with idea throughout the writing piece and do not have a clear beginning, middle, and end.
3- Solution
My solution was to use digital storytelling to help slow down the whole writing process. Because of time constraints at the end of the year I choose to make a whole class digital story so the whole class would benefit form the explicit modeling and instruction of slowly going through the whole writing process of brainstorming, drafting, editing, revising, and publishing together. Since we finished out the year with a fantasy unit this was the genre I choose for writing. After receiving feedback from my peers I decided to collect data with a pre-assessment and a post assessment of students writing their own fantasy story before the intervention of digital story and after its use. I at the end compared these pre and post assessments.
4- Technology Pedagogical Knowledge
I decided upon digital storytelling because of research that supports its use in the writing process. I found numerous articles connecting the use technology to digital storytelling to supporting writing and found one by Ruth Sylvester, Wendy-lou Greenidge to be the most connected to my Wicked Project. Students use oral, written, and visual skills throughout the process of creating a digital story and this reaches out to multiple intelligences as an increased motivator. It also connects to the lives that students are living out of the classroom as they explore the Internet, video game, digital photography and making graphic organizers with technology. A peer suggested that I utilize a storyboard as the organizational tool for this project since students struggle with organization and I did so when moving from the step of drafting to publishing as we planned for the images and transitions to be integrated into it.
5-Technological Content Knowledge
Scaffolding during this process was a huge step in the implementation. Students had already had experiences typing and editing in Word. Also, they have used Power Point before and I selected a storyboard outline from the Internet that was similar to slide layouts on Power Point to help with consistency. Finally, I had previously scanned in images from students to then record their voices to using Voicethread so recording voices to a class book was not a new process but using iMovie for the digital story was a new layer of technology for the students. Students were aware that a copy of the finished product would be shared with families and adults at the school.
6-Pedagogical Content Knowledge
Knowing the areas that my students struggle with most allowed me to highlight these areas during my explicit teaching with digital storytelling. Knowing that students get off track with ideas I was able to keep probing them to reflect if their contribution made sense to the story as a whole. Also, using the graphic organizer I made for the beginning brainstorming of the story helped to plan students’ ideas out in a clear organization before even writing the story. Then using the storyboard to connect the images drawn to the story was another helpful tool sot eh whole class was on the same page.
7-Planned Implementation
As seen from this list, here was my implementation. All that I planned was able to be implemented. I was surprised with the amount of engagement from the project. Students really go invested into the story and characters. For the pre-assessment of writing I allowed the students to write any fantasy story but there could only be one element of fantasy so the story would not be too difficult to follow. Again for the post-assessment I had the same guideline and half of the class wrote a chapter two to go along with the story we wrote as a whole class. I even had students going home to write more chapters that were connected to our class story. The whole class brainstorming was overwhelming since there were so many ideas but once we decided upon the one idea each student had their chance to contribute a paragraph. As I typed their thoughts I wanted to have some reflection questions that helped the students stay on track. I made a poster board of these and students were able to look back at them also during their post-assessment. The questions were:
-Do the details connect to one another?
-Is there a beginning, middle, and end?
-Are all the details supporting the main idea?
-What is the heat (main idea) of your story?
-What is the one unrealistic part?
I choose to do this as a comment from one of my peers earlier and the consistent language seemed to be a supporting factor.
I knew going into the project that time was precious and that it would take longer than expected and sure enough it did. Storyboarding, scanning in the images and saving them and students recording their voices took longer than I had planned for. Surprisingly, my chatty students clamed up once it came time to record their voices so I had to redo some so they could speak with a louder voice.
The biggest bumps in the road were brainstorming for the story and scanning in the images and saving them all individually as jpegs. There were so many opinions with brainstorming and I would fix this next time by implementing digital storytelling with an individual or a small group so that it would be even more focused individualized instruction for the writing process. Since I am using digital storytelling as a writing intervention I would implement it in a smaller focused group so I could track the data more closely if the intervention truly helps. As for scanning in the images I plan to talk with the technology director at school if there is a setting on our scanner that can upload the images as jpegs instead of pdfs to save time.
It was delightful to see the students spending so much time on editing and revising which normally is a step that the students rush through. I feel that having them edit another paragraph that someone else wrote gave fresh eyes to catch mistakes and also having the knowledge that this project would be shared with many eyes gave extra motivation.
8- Indications of a successful project
My indicators of a successful project was that I was able to implement the whole thing, few technological difficulties, teamwork, students took time to using the planning sheet provided in their pre and post assessments, writing was longer and more focused in the post assessments, increased motivation, more time spent on editing and revising both the digital story and post assessments, and student pride in the final project.
9-Results
The whole project was able to get implemented as planned, taking a bit longer than expected.
The evidence of success was seen comparing the pre and post assessments. The students wrote longer, more time was taking on editing and revising, and students used the guided questions from the poster board as their own personal reflection if they were on track with ideas/organization.
My big "ah ha" after reading through all the writing samples that the use of Digital Storytelling helped my higher writers the most. My student that are at or below grade level continued to write with ideas that were not clear and stories that did not have a beginning, middle, and end. This shows me that they are not able to get what they need out of whole class lessons and more individual and small group instruction is needed. However, my higher writers did have a change in their writing after we created a whole class. Their endings were better and details fell more inline with their main idea.
This comes to how I would approach the project differently given what I have learned. I would try digital storytelling with a smaller group of middle writers. Again I would do a pre and post assessment but I would have them write in the personal narrative genre on a specific prompt since this is what is seen on the MEAP. Then I think in the small group setting of using my middle writers we would take one of the student's samples to create the digital story from, retracing our steps to how you should brainstorm, use a storyboard to plan out the writing, write, edit, revise and finally publish. This way all students would be getting instruction but they could at the same be using Digital Storytelling. After I would give the students the same writing prompt to compare their writing before and after the use of iMovie for a digital story and that way using the same prompt I would have clear evidence of growth. I think that time continues to be the biggest issue as if I were doing this with a small group the rest of the students would have to be independently engaged. I would do this whole project again but just in a smaller more focused group.
Lesson learned
1.) When scanning in files to then be uploaded into iMovie they need to be jpeg files and not pdf files. Each file was saved separately into iPhoto and then inputed into iMovie.
2.) There are tons of possible storyboards available on the Internet and you just need to find what works best for you whether that is printing it out and writing on it or editing it on the computer by typing into it.
3.) Input your images in iMovie first and don't worry about how long each are slotted to the playing time. Record each voice separately and then it shows how long that segment was so then you can click on the clock icon to match the time on the image to the time on the voice recording so they match up.
4.) Plan for more time that you originally think!
10- Why you should try digital storytelling in your classroom:
10. Opportunities for new graphic organizers to be used with storyboarding. They can be paper or computer based.
9. There are tons of resources available out there from storyboard to programs to making the digital stories.
8. Meets curriculum standards as students practice writing, reading, and oral presentation while integrating the full writing process from brainstorming all to way to publishing.
7. Research based practice.
6. Gives students more experiences to technology since this is the world they are growing up in.
5. Data collection can be used with digital storytelling to track increase writing skills.
4. You utilize what your students already know and scaffold from that.
3. It slows down the writing process allowing students to see the full process in action with direction instruction along the way.
2. Peers have opportunities to learn from each other and to rise up to be leaders in different steps in the whole process.
1. It’s fun and students have increased motivation.

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Sunday, June 12, 2011

Wicked project Part D: Findings and Implications

Formative: Did the project get implemented as planned?

I do feel that my project did go as planned. I set out a timeline as to how the project would go knowing in my head that things usually take longer than projected and sure enough that happened. Here was my timeline:
-Teach about the fantasy genre during reading and writing workshop (1 week)
-Pre-assessment fantasy writing (1 day but it took 2 days)
-Coming up with idea for story and brainstorm of whole class (1 day)
-Writing of story (1 day but it took 2 days)
-Students editing writing (1 day)
-Storyboarding (1day)
-Students drawing and then I scanning all of work in together (1 day but it took 2 since all the files had to be saved separately)
-Students recording their voices (1 day)
-Students writing their post-assessment fantasy stories (1 day)


Summative: Evidence of success in addressing the problem of practice.

My evidence was based upon writing samples from before the Digital Storytelling was implemented compared to writing samples after the intervention was used to help support clear ideas and organization in writing. My big "ah ha" after reading through all the writing samples that the use of Digital Storytelling helped my higher writers the most. My student that are at or below grade level continued to write with ideas that were not clear and stories that did not have a beginning, middle, and end. This shows me that they are not able to get what they need out of whole class lessons and more individual and small group instruction is needed. However, my higher writers did have a change in their writing after we created a whole class Digital Story. I looked at two student in particular that are good writers but in their pre-assessment one writer did not have a clear ending and just ended it with "they lived happily ever after" and the other writer skipped around in ideas so the organization was not clear. However, after we created the Digital Story together they both choose to write their post-assessment fantasy story based upon the ideas from the whole class one. They both then had clear beginning, middles, and ends and the idea was clear in both writing samples. I even noticed that they wrote longer this time and even spelling was better. I think that since we slowed down the writing process as a class as so much time was taken on each step as a model of how writers should think about each step it benefited the writers in my class that already have a pretty good knowledge base and this extra intervention seemed to then help with them taking their time on each step.

How would you approach another project of this type differently given what you’ve learned here?

If I were to do this project again I would do Digital Storytelling with a small group first. Since I noticed the greatest improvement with my higher writers in a large group format I would then try writing a story with a small group of my middle writers since the format would be smaller and they could then get more individualized instruction than in a larger group. Since I was teaching a fantasy unit my writing instruction was in this genre but I would utilize the project that I did with the students in the writing genre of personal narratives since this is the area where the MEAP and test score shows where the most growth is needed. I would give students a specific topic to write about such as, "A time I collaborated with someone" for their pre-assessment. Then I think in the small group setting of using my middle writers we would take one of the student's samples to create the digital story from, retracing our steps to how you should brainstorm, use a storyboard to plan out the writing, write, edit, revise and finally publish. This way all students would be getting instruction but they could at the same be using Digital Storytelling. After I would give the students the same writing prompt to compare their writing before and after the use of iMovie for a digital story and that way using the same prompt I would have clear evidence of growth. I think that time continues to be the biggest issue as if I were doing this with a small group the rest of the students would have to be independently engaged.


What are the lessons learned that others might benefit from knowing about?

1.) When scanning in files to then be uploaded into iMovie they need to be jpeg files and not pdf files. Each file was saved separately into iPhoto and then inputed into iMovie.
2.) There are tons of possible storyboards available on the Internet and you just need to find what works best for you whether that is printing it out and writing on it or editing it on the computer by typing into it.
3.) Input your images in iMovie first and don't worry about how long each are slotted to the playing time. Record each voice separately and then it shows how long that segment was so then you can click on the clock icon to match the time on the image to the time on the voice recording so they match up.
4.) Plan for more time that you originally think!

In what ways will you endeavor to do the same project again, and what will you change or not do?

I would do this same project again as I saw the motivation of my student for the writing process increase as they are asking me to make another one and students are writing more chapters to the story that we created so then we can create more Digital Stories. As noted above I would do this project with a smaller group since it was overwhelming to have the whole class try to share their ideas so that all voices were heard. I was also the scribe in this process and next time would have the students write for the digital story so they could work on editing their own written work compared to a typed out story. This is a more authentic experience since writing on paper is what they are expected to do on the MEAP. Other than having a small group make a digital story about a personal narrative and using writing compared to tying ideas I would not change much else. I would continue to seek out different storyboards available to see what works best with my students.

Thursday, June 9, 2011

Wicked Project Part C: Implementation (podcast)

podcast

Group leadership project part b: Script and Storyboard

Storyboard and script of how to use Jing

For this script and storyboard I worked on the section of creating a screenshot using Jing. First I made a PowerPoint with the images I wanted to use as to how to create a screenshot. I decided to use images from Google maps and took screenshots of the steps of selecting an image, dragging the lines to croup the image, and finally capturing the image so then it can be saved and shared. I added headings and script to each Power Point.
Sara then created a Google Docs page for the whole group to input their images, transition, headings, and script to. I added my information under the screenshot section. Sara and I then worked on organizing the information so there was:
Introduction
Signing up for Jing and downloading it to a computer
Taking a screenshot
Taking a video
Editing a video and screenshot using drawing tools provided by Jing
Sharing images and videos taken from Jing

I added text to the script part. I added text to say where there would be video demonstrations of taking a screenshot and downloading the Jing program.

Final steps . . .
I will be putting the images to be shown in the final presentation in order in a Power Point. I discovered that I images that are in our storyboard are not able to be copied so I am awaiting my group members to email their images to then they can be ordered and organized. I will then add text and transitions to the Power Point and will email the final product to Sara. She will be recording her voice over the presentation using the script we developed by using Screencastomatic. She will also be adding actual demonstrations as noted in our storyboard.

Wicked Project Part C: Implementation (digital story)



This is the digital story that my class created using iWeb.