bherman

In this project the students worked together to create a podcast that evaluated the character, analyzed the traits of that character, and judged his values. This project was an adaptation from a practice book page. Most of the students created a project that just answered the questions one the page, however, there were a few that used creativity to add a different spin to the project. These students created a talk - show format. In the example below one of my students mimicked the judge shows that are currently being aired.

Before the project we took a number of the following steps:

1. I noticed that many of the practice book pages could be adapted for an iPod/podcast type of project, and so I have changed the way many of my students are completing the work.

2. I looked at the skills assessment in the fifth grade practice book on page 309 and told the students they could create a podcast that talked about the main characters traits, values, and the judgements the students could make about the character.

3. After the students used a story board(flow maps - a thinking map we use at Farr) to write their analysis of the character they recorded their podcasts.

4. Many of the students just answered the questions on the page, however, a few turned the information into a television show such as the one above. These students tend to be also be reading at a higher level thus the ability to generate such good stories.

During the project:

1. The students recorded mostly using iTalk, and they used their scripts to read from. It was quite successful. I, however, wanted more to be creative as the one above.

2. Since I only have seven iPods the students did this project collaboratively in groups of two to three.

After the project:

1. The students added any sound effects they wanted, and sent the project to me via edmodo.

2. On edmodo I was able to check their projects from home or at work and score them according to a rubric.

3. The rubric is based on how well they analyzed the character(content), creativity, and their ability to work together to share their ideas. The analysis was the biggest part.

4. Next time, I will help more students to think differently about the way they present their work.

5. To do this, I have already shared with them the podcasts that were very successful and those that were not as successful and we compared. I will also pair those who were not as successful with those who are.

Again, all students are having fun, and those who are less accelerated than the others are catching up. It was a fun project for them.

This project allowed the students to use their creativity and improve their comprehension of the story. This story is a nonfiction story that is in the Houghton Mifflin Anthology, and is difficult because the history is pretty new for the students.

The project was completed in the following manner:

1. The students read the story with their partners. As they were reading it they used a dialectical journal to ask questions and answer these questions using concrete examples from the text.

2. Once they had these questions they were ready to write their scripts.

3. These scripts were written using a flow-map, on a large laminated sheet, with vis-a-vis. This allowed the students to write, discuss, revise, and engage the material in their own way.

4. Upon completion of the script they used iTalk to record their scripts.

5. The audio file was loaded onto Garage Band and they added pictures that represented what they were talking about from the internet.

This is the project:

Problems that they faced were the following:

1. I did this project with my ELD class (the EO's), and many of these students come from other classes. This made it a very long project.

2. Many of these students do not use any type of technology in their classes, so I had to start from scratch with the teaching. They, however, learned fast, I think improved their reading, and had fun!

3. I could also only use the four computers in my room because other teacher do not have the complete version of garage band, and kids kept losing their audio files.

4. The pictures that the students are choosing are becoming very grainy, and I don't know how to fix this problem to help them to have a better final project. It shows up in the title slide in this project.

Next steps:

1. I want the kids to do a persuasive/research project that argues their point.

2. They will use the iPods to find information, ask me questions through the blog, and record the audio.

In this project the students concentrated on the strategy of questioning. They were able to complete the project by doing the following:

1. We read the story from the Houghton Mifflin Anthology a number of times. In fact, the students used dialectic journals to debate the facts of the story.

2. The students used questions from their dialectic journals to create a story board/script.

3. The story board that they used was put on large laminated sheets. This way they could use vis-a-vis pens to write, erase very quickly, and add to the script what they needed. It also allows for two or three kids to be working at the same time - If you allow them to do it on the floor. Finally, it saves a lot of paper.

4. Once they had their scripts, I allowed them to record on the iPods using iTalk sync.

5. They synced their audio recording with the eMac's, opened garage band, and used photos from the common to complete their art line.

6. Many students also added some drawings. In the example below, the students illustrated the title, I took a picture of it using the ELMO, and dropped the picture on the common for the students to use.

7. Finally, some of the students turned their m4a recordings into mp4's and added them to their blog space in pbworks.

Some problems we encountered are the following:

1. When we started the project the computers had not had a software update, and every time we tried to save in iLife the audio files would be lost. This was fixed soon after the eMac's were updated.

2. The students had trouble matching the sound to the pictures that they chose, but after a few times they were able to sync their voices to the action pretty well.

The students had a great time doing this project. Since this project they have also experimented with more of the sound effects and jingles on garage band. I am excited to do more, especially in math and science and incorporate more Keynote slides to demonstrate the steps in math and the different science processes.

In this project the students are focusing on questioning and using dialectic journals to do the following:

1. They will read the story "Michelle Kwan" from the Houghton Mifflin 5th grade anthology.

2. While they are reading they will keep a dialectic journal. This journal will have both questions and answers which will allow them to write better interview questions.

3. The students will work together in pairs to create a question answer dialogue between the main character and an interviewer.

4. They will record the interview on the iPod using iTalk and iTalk sync and create an enhanced podcast.

5. The students will use photos from the story using the ELMO. Students will either draw these or take the pictures from their books.

6. The students will upload these interviews to my blog and to their pbworks.com page.

The students are having a lot of fun with this project, and creating questions that reveal they understand the message that the author is trying to impart in the writing.

A copy of the script in pages format is shown below:

In this project the students will create a play after reading a novel.  In this play they must make sure that they have the following story elements:

1. The characters

2. The setting including the time and place

3.  The problem and the solution

4.  They should also include the title, author, and illustrator if there is one.

After the students have plotted the above information on a tree map they will work together in their reading group to create a summary/play of their story.  This play will, however, not tell the whole story.  It will be a summary that will entice others to want to read the story.  

They will also have the aid of their weekly podcasts to remember the chapters in the story.  These I saved in my iTunes library.  After they have listened to these, and used a tree map to plot the story they will put the story into a flow map/story board.  All of this will be done on a large laminated sheet with vis-a-vis so that everyone in the group can participate in the creative process.  Students will also use the laminated sheets to plot where they will place pictures.  These pictures can either be drawn or pictures taken with the ELMO.

The next step students will take is to put the story into the pages program making it much like a novel to screen play; and this really motivates students when you compare them to writers in Hollywood.  

The last step is to read the play into iTalk.  They will also choose the music etc.

A copy of the pages script is shown below as well as the project and a picture of the laminated sheets that the students used to do the projects.

Below is a picture of one of the laminated sheets that the team used to create storyboard/Flow Map:

    

     

In this project I propose that the kids will create an enhanced podcast using the iPods to summarize after each chapter of one of the Literature Circle books that they are reading.  They are reading books that have intricate plots, and allowing the students to write summaries, read, and re-read the summaries has helped them to better understand the stories that they are reading.  Working together in small groups to write and read the summaries has also taught the students to accept other opinions and points of view.   The project has the following steps:

1.  The students read a chapter or two, and do their literature circle jobs.  

2.  Students use large, laminated poster - size sheets, and flow map (summarizing) with vis a vis.  This allows for three to four students to work on one summary at a time.  It also makes it easy to fix mistakes because all they need is a paper towel.

3.  They read the summary into the iPod.  It usually sounds more like a news report or book talk of the book.  

4.  It is uploaded into iTunes and then into garage band.

5.  The students use then add any stingers or jingles they want to the podcast, and share it so that it becomes an enhanced podcast.

There are two examples on this page.  The top example is a book summary in an interview format.  The students used pages to write the play for this after reading the book.

The second example is more of a book talk about a chapter in "I, Juan de Pareja". They will add weekly installments.  The students followed the lesson format above for this podcast.

The pages project is time consuming, but as a culminating project the students learn how to write so that everybody knows exactly what is going on.  You can see from the above project the group left out some explanation and it is a little difficult to follow.    

This project connected many different curricular areas, including the following: recent American history, American history, language development, figurative language, and vocabulary development. I did this project with my fifth grade E.O.'s from my ELD class.

The process:

1. We investigated the recent elections for president, and talked about the historical significance of an African American as president. This led to some very interesting and thought provoking discussions.

2. The students, with my help, were able to connect Barack Obama with Abraham Lincoln. They realized he was from the same state and that Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves. Stemming from these conversations we were able to talk more about what Lincoln did and how he tried to bring the nation together at a very difficult time. This again paralleled Obama's daunting task. 3. This investigation of what was happening in the news took almost a year. I have rolled with my class, so we have been talking about the elections for quite some time, and this helped when we connected recent history with late history. More importantly, I have students that are exceptional, they make up the majority of my ELD class, and this made the discussions much easier.

4. After we made this connection I found a good picture of Abraham Lincoln on the Internet, took a snapshot of it, used the alpha to erase the background, added a speaking bubble, copied eight slides, and dropped the template on the common folder for student access.

5. The students(36 of them) were given the Gettysburg Address, we went over it together, talked about it's historical significance, the vocabulary, and the students got an idea of what we were going to do with it in Keynote. This became their motivation to learn the speech.

6. The speech was split up into eight parts, and there were about three students per part. Then the students memorized their parts.

7. When the students learned their parts they typed their lines in the bubble in the template in the appropriate slide.

8. After all the groups had typed their parts and finished their transitions, the entire group recited the speech together into garage band.

9. I then exported the track into itunes and imported it into the Keynote project. It turned out pretty well.

Some problems that arose and some ways that I would change them are as follows:

1. I would not do it with such a large group. This group also did not have as good an understanding of Keynote as my class and some of the transitions show the problems.

2. I would have a mentor student make sure all the transitions are done correctly.

3. The same students must do the audio from the first slide to the last. I had eight groups because the speech was so long. Reciting the speech into garage band first and importing it into Keynote was very difficult when you don't know exactly what each group did with transitions and timing.

4.  After talking with our TRT, I would also have the students draw their own pictures, so that copyrights are not infringed.

5. My students are doing another personification project using the audio component of Keynote, and they are having a lot more success starting from the first slide and reading what they wrote.

Although there were a few problems the students learned a lot and had fun. This had motivated them to go on and want to do more exciting projects on the computer.

Here is an example of the project:

Here is an example of a project where the student spoke from the first slide to the end slide using the audio component.  In this project all the students had to do a Keynote on an explorer to the Americas.  They also assumed the role of the explorer.

The project is as follows:

My class is quite unique in the fact that I have 20 GATE identified students. They enjoy doing challenging and engaging activities, so I tried to choose a project that would link Language Arts and Social Studies.  We are studying American history.

In this project the students:

1. Discussed the historical implications of the first African American becoming president of the United States.

2. This led to a discussion of prior presidents, and the students linked Abraham Lincoln with the abolition of slavery and an understanding that without this event in history Barack Obama would not have been elected president.  

3.  We then looked at important speeches given by Lincoln, and a few of the students wanted to learn and memorized parts of the "Gettysburg Address".  

4.  I split up the speech into nine parts, and the students into nine groups.  

5.  We then read the speech together and discussed all the language and the tried to better understand the history behind the speech at Gettysburg.  It was a great discussion.  

6.  I created a template in Keynote with a picture of Lincoln on it and a speaking bubble, and I dropped the template on the common folder where the students could access it.  The groups then wrote their parts in the bubble, and recited their parts into the audio.  

7.  The project is finished, however, there was a little problem in the audio.  When each group went they recorded, and when I played it back it played only the last slide to be recorded.  

8.  I think I am going to have the groups continuously record from the first slide to the ninth in a continuous loop to fix the problem.  

This has supported reading comprehension by allowing my students to improve vocabulary, understand history, and the link of good literature and history.