Letting Students Shine

Tomorrow is the first gathering of our new stop motion video club which has now been named Scotty Dog Productions.  I must say I am full of excitement and nerves as I have never actually made one myself but have seen plenty of examples, read blogs about and discussed them with others.  Word surfaced at school of a 5th grader who has developed a passion for stop motion videos and it was suggested to approach him as a support person for this journey. Tony (over at Learn Me Sumthin') and I agreed we would approach him with the idea of being a mentor to kids in the group.

The art teacher had shown me one of the movies this student had created and I was very impressed by it.  He had created a scene that could have taken place during an Indiana Jones movies.  He used a toy car, an Indiana Jones figure and then a "bad guy" figure.  The gist of the scene is that the "bad guy" is in the car and Indiana Jones throws him out and takes over the car.

I called this student's mother to run the idea by her and I could tell in her voice that the idea of her child taking on a mentoring role would mean a lot to this student.  He hasn't had much of a chance to come forward as a leader and this would be a wonderful opportunity to highlight one of his strengths.  When I pulled him out of class and asked him if he would be willing to share his videos with the group and help us guide them through the process of creating videos of their own you could actually see the excitement start radiating from him.  I feel like we have given this student a chance to shine in a leadership role that might not have occurred without this group being formed.  

Here's to hoping tomorrow's first gathering of Scotty Dog Productions goes well!

If You Give A Teacher Technology

Have you ever had the chance to read books written by Laura Numeroff?  One of her bestsellers is If You Give A Mouse A Cookie and it follows a wonderful pattern.  If you give the mouse a cookie they are going to want milk.  If you give them the milk they are going to want a straw and so on.  Today I had the pleasure of sitting down with one of the teachers in my building and showing her our district's Wiki/Blog.  Our conversation reminded me of the pattern of this book!

We started off the conversation with clarifying the difference between the two web tools.  Wikis being a collaborative space for multiple users to have input and Blogs typically being an individual's work where others can comment.  As I showed her some examples of how these tools were being utilized in other classrooms I could see the wheels turning and her thoughts running wild.

So I had her back up and tell me what she was thinking about doing before we had started chatting and exploring and she had shared that she was going to have kids post a sentence or two about what they had learned that day.  But she shared that with seeing all the possibilities of what other students had produced using these tools, and through our discussion, she felt like there were so many different directions she could go and she needed to rethink how to use Wikis and Blogs.

So we are scheduled to sit down again on Friday and continue our conversation.  I am so excited to see how her thinking has evolved and where she is going to take her students (and me!) on this journey in using Web 2.0 tools!

Stop Motion Video Club (Slice of Life Day Twenty-Seven)

After hearing about, reading about and thinking about stop motion videos this year my friend Tony over at Learn Me Sumthin' and I are plunging into this world with a group of 3rd and 4th graders.  We decided to start small this year focusing on two grade levels and then next year possibly branch into more grade levels.  The group will meet once a week for 5 weeks for an hour after school.  We sent out the forms this past week and I was not quite sure what the response would be.

The response was awesome!  We have 38 students who brought back forms expressing interest in joining the "club".   So now we have to start laying some foundations for this to get off the ground successfully.  We are crafting an agreement for the students to sign laying out the expectations for group members.  Anyone have ideas of what we could include?

A big thank you to Kevin at Kevin's Meandering Mind for inspiring this journey!

Perseverance of a Student (Slice of Life Day Twenty-Two)

Today a student was thinking with more innovation than I was and this led to some perseverance on his part and some learning on my part.  I loved every second of it!

This student had been diligently working on a project about the Titanic displaying all the knowledge he had gained through reading books and researching on the web.  He had artfully created colored text boxes, sharp looking topic headings in each box and had imported eye catching pictures of the Titanic to support his text.

But was he satisfied with his final project? No!

Was he going to settle with just these items on his final product like everyone else?  No!  

He posed the question, "Can I find a video about the Titanic and put it on my project?"  Sure! Why not!

He and I tried every which way we could think of to get a video from the web onto his Pages document.  We tried clicking and dragging like you can do with an image.  Nope, didn't work.  We tried using the embedding code.  Nope, that didn't work either.  Then we came to the thought of trying to create a live link to the video on the web.  Bingo!  That worked!

Because of this student's creativity, and his perseverance in wanting this video on his project, it pushed me to not give up on trying solutions to fulfill his wishes.  I appreciate him having patience, and maybe some faith, in me and my abilities!  It was wonderful to see his eyes light up with excitement when we got the link to work!  

Cheering for Creativity!

Have you ever gotten tired of seeing the same thing over and over and over again? Have you ever thought to yourself, "I can't listen to or watch another presentation today because they are all identical?" I have been there with you!

In years past our second graders have made Keynote presentations on what they have learned about a famous american they have studied. Our state standards require students to learn about certain historical figures, scientists and inventors. Second grade approached this by tying it into non-fiction reading and writing through research on these individuals. Students were then asked to create Keynote presentations on their findings.

Sounds great, right?

Sure, it was at the beginning when it was all fresh and new. We had created a slideshow template for the students to follow. So, all the text was in the same spot. All the pictures were in the same spot. It was the same presentation over and over and over again but just about different people. There was zero creativity in putting together their presentations.

This year I have read and thought about 21st Century Learning Skills and how to bring them to the forefront of what we are doing as teachers. One of these skills is creativity. So, I approached the second grade team with an idea. Why don't we let students have some choice in where the pictures and text go on their slides? Why don't we let them explore different layouts, font styles and font sizes?

At first they were hesitant because there wasn't a comfort in having the template laid out where the students just plugged in their information. Students would have to learn how to select an appropriate slide layout or create their own. I asked them to go on this journey with their students and it would be a learning adventure together.

We just started working on these before "the big snow" hit us so we haven't gotten very far. But...I have been super impressed with how quickly the students picked up on how to select a slide layout, change sizing of text and pictures and changing the size of text. Students that picked up on these skills quickly jumped up and helped others naturally. It was awesome to watch it all get started!

Now I can't wait to get back to work with these students and watch them create their presentations to showcase their knowledge of their famous americans.

Stay tuned for final results!