I think overall that I immersed myself in technology the most for this course. I began to use Twitter and discovered the massive resources that come from having a PLN. I read and commented on more blogs. I found some terrific new links such as http://flickrcc.bluemountains.net/flickrCC/index.php for copyright friendly images. I learned about new apps for my iPad and the fact that Cisco has killed the Flip camera. However, I have to ask myself as I venture more and more into applying the tools of technology, what more are my students doing?
During the time of this course I had my students make comments on students’ blog in the United States. They played some online games for fractions that I learned about from Twitter, as well as terrific poetry game. However, I would love to get them using technology for some project-based learning. I would like my students to use search tools as we study Taiwan for our new social studies curriculum. It would be great for them to create posters about Taiwan and share them with another class in the world.
For the final project for the SUNY COETAIL course on Visual Literacy, Nancy Gorneau and I came up with an idea that would integrate with both the reading and writing units on realistic fiction. We knew what outcomes or enduring understandings we wanted the students to have for both the academic content and the technology skills, but we had some grandiose plans for the student project.
We originally envisioned the students creating some kind of animation story with digital photos behind their images. It would look something like the pictures in the book Knuffle Bunny by Mo Wilems. After thinking about the time it would take to do that, we decided it would be better to use the Animation-ish software.
Students first practiced using Animation-ish to show a circuit, which they learned about in science. Next we had students develop their characters for their realistic fiction stories. They had to know their characters inside and out, which means they knew their external and internal traits. I use the quote from Lucy Calkin’s Units of Study for Teaching Writing that “Before you can begin writing your story, you need to know your characters so well that you know exactly how much change each one has in his or her pocket.” To help them create their characters, they sketched them and added a word splash to their pictures.
In class I modeled the writing process with a class character named Sally Sue. We discussed how her qualities fit with how she acted and even her problem in the story. Nancy modeled showing the character’s qualities with an Animation-ish movie of Sally Sue.
The technology side of the project was completed in 3 computer lessons. It was interesting to see the variety of animations the students created. Some ended up showing scenes from the story instead of the character’s qualities and others showed only internal traits or only external traits instead of both. It was interesting to see them bring their characters to life by showing some of the many different ways they can know a character.
One way I might improve this project would be to specifically guide students to show their character’s traits through actions, thoughts and speech. This might guide them to show both internal and external traits. Another way it could be mapped for the students is to show at least three scenes to show the beginning, middle and end of the story, including how the character changed. However, it also might cramp their imaginations, which is really the aim of Animation-ish!
