BP10_RILS Commenting and Linking_Educator Studio

Digital Storytelling

If you are interested in motivating your students to write in an innovative, creative, engaging and tech savvy  way, my classmate Chrissia Haughton created a Relevant and Innovative Learning Scenario (RILS) that demonstrates how to introduce ComicLife in primary grades, K-2 , in a fun, unique  and comical kind of way!

Visit Educator Studio to see how Chrissia Haughton

• Introduces the software ComicLife to teachers and students
• Creates a unique storyboard about penguins using students very own pictures
• Receives comments about what I and others thought about her innovative lesson that is adaptable for any classroom in so many ways

Here is the link, just click and read your way to making your own comic today!

http://educatorstudio.com/lessons/lets-make-comic

While you are at Educator Studio, you might as well check out another fun lesson on using emergent technology for digital storytelling in the primary grade classroom.

Read another classmates RILS that shares an additional tech savvy way 1st grade teachers can teach sequencing and retelling  using a  cool  emergent tool found at  www.storyjumper.com  . See how April Woosley takes a fundamental primary grade activity for assessment and  upgrades the old cut and paste version of ordering  parts of a story  in a tech savvy 21st century way.

Visit Educator Studio to see how April Woosley:

• Step’s up her authentic reading comprehension activities by going digital
• Uses Story Jumper to connect Digital Story Sequencing purposefully within students everyday life
• Foster’s collaboration and communication in the classroom using digital story telling to retell their story in their creative  way.

Here is the link to April Woosley’s “tech savvy” lesson. Send her a comment and let her know what you a think!

http://educatorstudio.com/lessons/clever-1st-grader-who-swallowed-story

BP7_RILS_PhotoPeach_Educator Studio Post

Christina Wilson

ETC- July 2012

RILS Implementation

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Title: PHOTOPEACH: PHOTOS THAT BRING STORIES TO LIFE

BRIEF OVERVIEW

Designed for K-8 students to design and write their own digitally and musically enhanced slideshow. Students will have the ability to share their stories by uploading their own pictures, pick the music for their shows and write their own stories discussing the meaning behind the pictures that they chose.

TARGET AUDIENCE

My target audience will be for children in grades K-3 at home for summer break using photography with their family.

MATERIALS

• Pencil

• Paper
• Writing Drafts

• Computers
Photos for uploading

• Memory Cards or Flash drives for photos

OBJECTIVES

• Learners will create a digital sideshow by uploading pictures they captured themselves and integrate sentences, music or audio to tell a meaningful story.
• Learners will understand differences and similarities in a family unit and experience the diversity within their community.

PROCEDURE

• Go to PhotoPeach.com(Students View on Overhead Projector)
• Click on Sign up for free
Enter a username, email and password
• Click on Explore

• Click on a category of interest (Family, Nature, Pet’s and Animals, Education, Science, Travel, Sports)
• Go to Photopeach.com (Students on computer).

• Select Create New Slide Show (Upload Photos.)

• Select up to 30 Photo’s of interest and Upload to Photo Peach.

• Drag and drop photos to change the play order

• Drag photo’s to the right side to delete them.
• Double-Click to see large previews
• Click Next
Add Music or upload your own Audio
• Draft and Write out Title and Captions for each picture on paper.
• Add a Title
• Add Caption’s to your pictures.
• Customize
Play slide show.

• Share each child’s slide show with the class and family.
• Embed each show on the class website to share with a collective community.

EMERGENT TECHNOLOGY

Photopeach.com is a slideshow application that is user friendly for all age groups that allows you to share your photos but also create digital stories by writing your own captions and integrating music to add to the viewing experience.

SOCIAL PARTICIPATION/ SOCIAL LEARNING

Students will start the activity by collectively discussing their own family units. They will watch a slideshow of my own family album and discuss members and their roles within it.

 

MAKING CONNECTIONS

• Previous Knowledge: From discussions and stories on families and community children have discussed the various members that make up a family.
• Relevant: Children in K-3 are learning about roles and member of a family unit. This will help them make connections and understand the members and functions of each person in a family. Students will make connections that they too are a collective part of a community.
• Local/Global Audience: By creating their own slideshow, students can share their stories and shows with others through embedding into the class website, sharing with the collective community on PhotoPeach, and sharing the slideshow with family and friends.

 

CREATE/PRODUCE

• A slideshow and digital story will be created with music and captions describing students personally captured photos edited just for their presentation.

 

REFLECTION

• Students will reflect on their experience by creating their own family album/and or meaningful story.
• They will present their slideshow and share with the class and families. This will enable students to be exposed to the differences in meaningful stories created amongst their peers.
• Students will be able to compare and contrast similarities and differences of the families that make up their community.

Assessment

• Rubric for Digital Storytelling: Photo Peach: Bring your story to life with Photos!

• Teacher Name: Mrs. Wilson

• Student Name:     ________________________________________

CATEGORY	4	3	2	1
Images	Images create a distinct atmosphere or tone that matches different parts of the story. The images may communicate symbolism and/or metaphors.	Images create an atmosphere or tone that matches some parts of the story. The images may communicate symbolism and/or metaphors.	An attempt was made to use images to create an atmosphere/tone but it needed more work. Image choice is logical.	Little or no attempt to use images to create an appropriate atmosphere/tone.
Soundtrack – Emotion	Music stirs a rich emotional response that matches the story line well.	Music stirs a rich emotional response that somewhat matches the story line.	Music is ok, and not distracting, but it does not add much to the story.	Music is distracting, inappropriate, OR was not used.
Grammar	Grammar and usage were correct (for the dialect chosen) and contributed to clarity, style and character development.	Grammar and usage were typically correct (for the dialect chosen) and errors did not detract from the story.	Grammar and usage were typically correct but errors detracted from story.	Repeated errors in grammar and usage distracted greatly from the story.
Point of View – Purpose	Establishes a purpose early on and maintains a clear focus throughout.	Establishes a purpose early on and maintains focus for most of the presentation.	There are a few lapses in focus, but the purpose is fairly clear.	It is difficult to figure out the purpose of the presentation.

Date Created: July 13, 2012

BP6_RiLS_PhotoPeach

I chose PhotoPeach.com as the emergent tool that I will be using for my RILS implementation because

1. It is FREE
2. Easy to Upload your digital photos
3. Easy to navigate, Just Click, Drag & Drag
4. Easy to  digital stories by creating slideshows with photos,  music and captions for young or intermediate children
5. It’s fun for teachers and other adults too
6. There are lots of examples of how to use PhotoPeach in the classroom or home environment

Although this a free site, which is great, I signed up for the Educator Account to test out its administrative feature that the site highlights as a perk for teachers.  The first month is a free trial also so that was a plus for trying out a new emergent tool and all the functions a teacher can use to help students create great shows in the classroom or with parents for building a home/school connection with technology!

The Educator’s Experience

I easily uploaded 100 of my photos from my drive quickly with no problems! All pictures displayed quickly.  I created my class roster and made usernames and passwords for all participant, including a student version for me. I thought this would be an effective way to view possible learning curves and situations through my students eyes by being the learner and not the educator during completing my slideshow.

As the educator I was able to easily set the tone for virtually managing my classroom with this tool easy.   Privacy settings are important for assuring student’s interact with content  that is safe and appropriate. I was able to add settings that help make sure students did not share content without my ability to have access to the information. Also all slideshow cannot be deleted without administrative approval, which is easy to do.

The Student’s Experience

As a learner, I used a student account to create my slideshow under my Educator account so that I can understand how to best manage both through practice. I logged out as educator and had to login with my student account I created. I did notice certain functions where not available for students. In order to access them I had to jump back into my educator account. At first this became confusing because I couldn’t figure out how to share my slideshow, but soon realized those features I disabled for my student accounts! This was a good learning experience from both perspectives.

The Downside to My Learning Experience as an educator and a student using  a new tool

I did run into two problems when making a slideshow.

1. As I added captions and spent a lot of time on my clips, for some reason I lost all the edits I made due to a save error on the site. I couldn’t retrieve any of it, so I had to start over. This was frustrating, and I could see how this could be frustrating for children.

Solution during implementation: I suggest writing a draft of captions first before typing straight onto the interface so they have  hard copy of their writing captions.

2. After I added all my photos with ease, I noticed some clips were not cropped correctly. The PhotoPeach site did not have any editing effects to help with this! I had to delete some of my favorite picture because they were upside down when the slide show displayed.

Solution during implementation: Make sure pictures are edited correctly before placing into PhotoPeach. Use another photo tool to fix pictures the way participants like.

Other then those two disadvantages using PhotoPeach was fun, easy and user friendly to use for creating digital stories in grades K- 12+.

I learned

• How to edit captions and add music to the entire slideshow
• How to create quizzes in PhotoPeach
• How to import all pictures easy at one time
• How to draw and drop pictures where I want them to display in the show
• How to Create as a Student
• How to administrate and manage Emergent Technology for a classroom like an Educator

Here is a personal slide show that shares a meaningful story with my learners about Celebrating a Day at Chicago’s Navy Pier for my daughters 5th birthday.

Enjoy my Story! Click Below to View

A Beautiful Day to Celebrate in Chicago on PhotoPeach