When even a story turns “digital” !

Featured

Posted on by
Reply

Storytelling has always been a fascination for kids. Thanks to Coetail for this interesting assignment!


Apart from mastering techniques and skills in sports, it is inevitable to take the right kind of diet both, during practice and on the day of the performance. I picked up this topic because I often come across a lot of kids who do have potential to perform but lack stamina.

So, I conceptualized the whole story using one of my own students as a character.Teenagers today are too influenced by this whole thought of taking proteins to get an attractively fit body. So this short story is how I tell him to go for the right meals at the right time !

Before I made the video, I created a draft storyline using Comic Life. I’ve posted the screenshots here. This basically helped me frame my ideas and build a continuity with pictures and text.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I clicked pictures and shot videos in the classroom and on track during practice so that when the kids look at it, they can identify better.

Finally I used iMovie for putting the  digital story in motion by adding each slide one by one and giving them a proper caption. I kept it short and very objective so that the kids enjoy it and simultaneously get the point. I basically needed a progressive tune to match the course of the story. So I used this one (The sidewalk-Impact)  from jamendo.com that provides royalty free music.You can even hear my voice at the end ( about “Grab and go” foods) that I recorded using the inbuilt feature of i Movie. I picked up the factual matter from the research presentation by Children’s Healthcare, Atlanta (see picture).

Game Nutrition

 

 

 

 

 

 

When I showed this to my kids, I noticed them enjoying it and the feedback I got from them was wonderful. The kids learned that it is important  to  conditioning the brain to recognize what kind of foods and fluids your body needs. Kids also learned about color scale of pee!!!! (” Happy runner Pee clear ” )

An unbelievably simple teaching method that I intend to use more often in my classes.Next year Middle school is moving to 1:1 ipad.  I plan  to ask kids to create a ‘digital story’ for learning a specific skill? This will help the kids to understand the key stages while executing the skill.

Here is my Digital Story:

YouTube Preview Image

Visual Literacy in PE

Posted on by
Reply

AttributionNoncommercialShare Alike Some rights reserved by alisonkeller

Course 3 has been exceptional because of the ease of teaching and  innovation we have brought into the classrooms after being exposed to the potential of visual literacy. From creating infographic posters to digital stories, communication with the students has been really effective and interesting. Being a PE teacher, it is always difficult to theoretically explain techniques to students because for them PE is different from their usual subjects. Hence, visual literacy automatically happens to be the helping tool.

 

“Visual Literacy is a gradual process of gaining greater sophistication of perception,conception and visual and linguistic vocabulary”, as mentioned in ‘The Visual Literacy White Paper’. This is absolutely true. You can judge a child’s understanding level by observing if he can grasp the concept using a single image or does he need a written explanation to comprehend what is being taught. The understanding is not only limited to school but it should be connected to daily life too. Let’s take a simple example.

Packed food items have different coloured marks for distinguishing between vegetarian and non-vegetarian. They don’t explicitly have it written on them. The mark, which is the visual tool for information here, says it all and thus makes it easy for both producer and consumer.While I teach strategies during Soccer or volleyball, I often use diagrams to show positions,movements etc because they can simply look at it and retain that image in their minds for long.

The Infographic Poster that I made for the 30 Day challenge seemed really attractive to them and they caught notice of it when I stuck it on the notice boards. It was different than the posters I used to make earlier because this time I followed the CRAP rules which made the impact even more stronger. The Presentation Zen video on Assessment Criteria and the Pecha kucha design on 21st Century Teachers was a different experience because I had to convey all my points using only pictures or else only a few words in a 20 sec/slide time limit. I realized how concise and effective it turned out to be.Adding to this, it helps you channelize your thought process and makes you sound relevant.

But the best part was the Digital Storytelling where I picked up a topic like Game Nutrition to teach the kids how important is it to focus on the diet they take to remain fit and perform well. They were easily able to identify with the central idea of the story. I am now going to make sure that once in each unit, I use Digital Stories to teach game strategies or techniques.

In short, for making game plans, team strategies, goals, diet plans,fitness rubrics, teaching new techniques and skills, safety rules etc in PE I shall make use of all these visualization tools to make teaching and learning seem easy and interesting.

I made this collage showing different tools which we can use to depict necessary information in our classrooms.( Because images definitely speak louder than words!!)