Digital Story Textual Analysis

Common Core Standards:

WHST.6-8.6: Use technology, including the internet, to produce and publish writing and present the relationships between information and ideas clearly and research to build and present knowledge.

WHST.6-8.7: Conduct short research projects to answer a question (including a self-generated question), drawing on several sources and generating additional related, focused questions that allow for multiple avenues of exploration.

CCS.ELA-Literacy.L.8.3a: Use verbs in the active and passive voice and in the conditional and subjunctive mood to achieve particular effects (e.g. emphasizing the actor or the action: expressing uncertainty or describing a state contrary to fact).

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.8.5: Integrate multimedia and visual displays into presentations to clarify information, strengthen claims and evidence, and add interest.

 

Objective:

Students will create a digital story in order to present their current vegetable. In doing so, students will show improvement in research skills with technology. They would also enhance their public speaking skills in front of their peers.

Why?

Incorporating the digital story into the curriculum would be quite vital actually. I feel after doing my example that it would be beneficial for students to improve not only their writing and research skills but also their presentation/public speaking skills. Through the use of this project they are doing multiple tasks that require knowledge of their vegetable (or any topic), looking for appropriate photos, organizing their thoughts and words to speak in the story, and working the courage to begin speaking to the computer first. In the best sense, I find that doing the public speaking may be the most difficult thing for students at this age. By doing this project they are already recording their information as everyone else is doing, and it can be watched with interesting videos and photos. This may ease the anticipation/nervousness for many students. 

As a teacher I feel that this technology would be a great advantage for the reasons stated above. I never used this technology until now and in the short period, I enjoyed it greatly. I would hope that students would also enjoy the difference in technology to create a story (not a power point), and add their own voice and music to such a thing. It creates anticipation, excitement and even interest for those that need something different from the traditional writing. Having this technology also offers options to students. I would allow them to choose personally, either writing traditionally, posters, or digital stories. Giving them an option lets them do what interests them and will in the long run provide better learning opportunities for them to show what they are capable of doing.

Final Lesson: Virtual Garden

Today was quite an interesting day. Students were given the opportunity to create their own virtual garden on yates.com.au. This website allows students to create a garden however they would like in any creative way. They are given options to choose the set up of their garden in either an L shape or a Square. There are options for different vegetables, trees, flowers, bushes, stone settings, and furniture that they may choose from. The only requirement we had of students is they must include what is offered by the program that they will personally be planting in the community garden. For them this meant that they must include: lettuce, radishes, spinach, and radishes in their garden. Rainbow chard and Kale were not offered and therefor exempt from inclusion in the garden.
During this time there were 5 boys only and we allowed them to listen to music while working, as long as they remained focused on the task and completed the assignment before leaving. Most students finished creating their garden within twenty to thirty minutes at which point they must show where they placed the required vegetables. Before they were allowed to finish up, screen shots were taken of their garden to show the coordinator of Tech Club who could not be there that day.
I feel that students truly enjoyed doing this. It is time consuming in a good way when someone gets into the program. However there were several students who did want to go as simple as possible by including as little as possible. Because no other guidelines were given other than the required vegetables it was easy for students to do the bare minimum with no enthusiasm to do well. From this it shows how important it is to give more guidelines that students must follow for easier tasks that may be fun for them to complete easily.

Second Lesson: Glogster

I really enjoyed todays lesson where students either worked on research (for those that were not there for the previous lesson) or worked on creating a digital poster through Glogster.
The class was consisted of about four of five students today. Two of which worked on a digital poster and the others on their research.
The research, as I am finding out, is not an issue when clarification on questions and instructions are given clearly. The only issue I had with today's lesson was one student consistently going off the desired website or wasting his time by searching random codes of lettering. Multiple times throughout the lesson I had to ask him how what he was doing related to his search on vegetables and ask him what new information he had found for me. I tried to keep in him on target with open ended questions and leading him back with encouragement rather than simply telling him he needed to quit what he was doing. This seemed to work as he got closer to finishing and grew intrigued by the idea of creating a digital poster.
The two students that continued their work from the previous lesson were greatly enjoying the idea of the poster. They were adding different cartoon features and asking questions on how to do different things such as videos etc. It showed that they were truly interested in the topic at hand and creating something fun to show off to the community.
From this lesson I do believe it would be easier to group students based upon where they are in the lesson. While it was a small group, having them split up across the room made it more difficult for me to see what everyone was doing at all times. In such cases as the student who was consistently off hand with his research it is important to be able to see where he is and how to get him on target again. By being across the room I cannot do so when helping another student. However, for the first lesson with two students this worked out well.

FIrst lesson: Research/Glogster

Today was the first lesson taught and while the class was small and consisted of two students it was very beneficial for everyone. Students were given the option to choose (based on when they arrived to class) which vegetable they would like to research in regards to their community garden. The options were Spinach, Lettuce, Kale, Rainbow chard, and Radishes. In front of them consisted of a sheet of paper with five pre determined questions that they needed to research about their specific vegetable.
One of the things that was done different with this is that computers were already set up randomly throughout the computer lab and preset on a specific kid friendly search engine website. The purpose of this was to move students away from one another to avoid disruptions of their time in the computer lab as well as to guide them away from the simple use of Google.
I believe that this lesson went really well. I could easily see the two student working diligently on their questions and asking when something did not make sense or when they could not find any results. When results were not found however, we sat together and discussed how we might reword our search in order to possibly find it another way without altering websites.
One student finished early and began using the desired website to create a digital poster (Glogster.edu).
From this lesson I did learn that it is important to word things as simple as possible. There was one predesigned question that confused students on what they should be researching. After discussing it and explaining what I was looking for, both understood. It really goes to show how easily our brains think in different ways. Something that makes sense to me will not always make sense to someone else, including my own students. Clarification is the key!

Tech Club Observation

     The first initial meeting and observation with Amy Wood, the Tech Club teacher at Chief Joseph Middle School, went extremely well. While there Amy and I discussed which days would be good for teaching tech club based upon their attendance on certain days followed by what would work well with my own schedule. We have decided upon Thursdays hopefully being the best day to attend, interact, and teach the students. We also discussed flexibility if Thursdays will not work due to my work schedule- she has stated she is flexible and has no problem with that if a problem arises with Thursdays.
     During my hour observation I noticed that while it is an after school program there is quite a bit of structure to this program. For the first 30 minutes of the 2 hour long Tech Club program students are given, actually instructed, to work on their homework and show their planners to the teacher in charge. The point of this is to instill structure and responsibility upon the students to use their time wisely to complete assignments and get any help while still in the school building before going home without additional resources at their fingertips. The idea of working in silence to encourage work is also instilled, they are asked to eat a snack (which they receive upon showing their planner for the day) in quiet while beginning their homework. If students do not have homework they need to be studying for any upcoming tests. There is little area for students to give an excuse. The teacher knows that either they have homework or there is some test for every student coming up that needs to be studied for.
     Prior to my observation I was informed by Amy that during the spring semester several practicum students helped establish an idea that was implemented for Tech Club. These students are going to be building a community garden that will inform the community of the health benefits of different plants, allow for locally grown vegetables, and cut costs. She has asked me to continue this idea of implementation with Tech club. Already we have discussed using a student friendly search engine for students to document their work of what each plant is, how it benefits the community from growth, and how it benefits the body from consumption.