courtneysimson

Following are two videos that sixth graders just finished. One, the girl who made the following film, acted in our Project Live movie, and the dance documentary was made by two girls who were on the tech crew for it. I invited them to make their own movies using my equipment after school, and these are the final videos. I have one more group finishing an independent film right after break. It's been fun supporting them and seeing what an amazing job they can do!

Here are three samples of booktalks my sixth graders have recently completed with their iPOD Touches.

This will be our IVIE entry video. We wanted to do an unusual spin on recycling PSA's, and I think the kids came up with a wonderful concept. In this short video, different kids will play with an empty plastic bottle, transforming it imaginatively through their actions into some fun items instantly recognizable through their pantomimes, music, and sound effects. At the end, the bottle is recycled. The fun part is the way it is passed from kid to kid and frame to frame. The camera is fixed; each little square set is the same except for its bright background color and the placement of cubes. The bottle is passed different ways OUT of the view of the camera, and picked up in the correct place in the new scene by the next kid. At the end, the bottle is passed in fast motion back to the first set. Hard to explain, but so cool, and I can't wait to see how it turns out. The crew of four, two from this year and two from last year, knocked out the script and storyboard in only forty-five minutes! Sorry...just loaded in what I thought were the corrected shots from Photo booth. For some reason, it also included the backwards ones. Sigh. The first and last shots are the correct ones.

THIS IS NOT AN IVIE ENTRY! I like to make a movie with my kids before Christmas to teach them lots of techniques, like adding music, titles, sound effects, greenscreen, use of neat camera shots, and special effects or transitions when appropriate. The idea for this movie, a girl who doesn't listen and has problems with friends, teachers, and family as a result, was mine. The script, filming, and editing was done by the kids with guidance and lots of teaching from me. I find if I do this, after Break they are totally prepared to do the entire process alone, and I can just be there to answer questions or help problem solve. It has worked well for me. We will make a minimum of two or three more videos that might potentially be IVIE entries in the Spring, and I am planning to encourage the kids to make more if they would like to.

This is the script from the first movie. We have actually finished filming at this point, and the kids have already had two editing sessions. They will finish editing the film after vacation.

This is a sample of the storyboard pages I did with the kids. This is not an iVIE entry, but rather, a teaching film, so we talked through all shots and took notes together, and learned how to do this in PAGES, but then went right on to the shooting plan (see below). A conventional storyboard works super well on a simple project like a PSA, which can be planned and shot quickly. With a more elaborate project that takes six to eight weeks to complete, like this one, it is a good exercise to see visually how shots will look, but the script and shooting plan, in my experience, are more valuable. For one thing, you don't always have the actual actors for the storyboard, and that can be confusing to tech kids looking at it later. For another thing, if kids are actively involved, it evolves over time, and they get better ideas. Shots are added, shots are deleted. For their own videos, it's an important step, but for a teaching video like this it's good to teach it and then move on.

At the beginning of the school year, I found out that 1/3 of my kids had never been in our computer lab. The first time I took them, many did not know how to log in or use a mouse to click on things. Fast forward to May, 2010, and behold thirty-three fifth graders who are recording voiceovers, doing keynotes, making movies, creating their own songs, and taking some wonderful digital pictures.

This was also a great growth year for me. I learned so much right along with them! We did lots of fluency and reading comprehension activities using the iPOD's, and will continue to do so (an upcoming state report involving evaluation, summarizing, and connections will be completed using Sonic Pics), but for my blog, I decided it would be more fun to put in some samples of things the kids submitted to the EYMF, because they are SOOOOOOO excited about that.

All of these projects were not only things the kids had never done, they were things I had never done. That was a neat thing! In reflecting on what we did, particularly in Garageband, I know several things I would do differently next year. I would model creating a song more. Although I cautioned them to pick loops in the same key, some did not listen (!) and threw any old thing in, with predictable results. I also want to encourage them to bring different instruments in at different times. The song I've included, "On the Road", does that, and most did not. Finally, we took baby steps on the sound effects stories. We listened to sound effects FIRST and made a list of ones we liked, then created a commercial or story that would incorporate them. I love to teach writing, so next year, I would play sound effects for them as a launch and to inspire their thinking, but without having the kids list them. We would then focus on the story or script, and find sound effects for it later. I think the caliber would be a great deal higher.

All said, it's been a wonderful year, and I am excited to keep exploring technology with my kids!

Another child created this sound effects commercial for the EYMF.