20% project - a great learning experience

Our last day of class was spent viewing other students projects.  I watched the various projects with my typical "What can I use" eye, and found that everyone offered me something.  As I reflect back on the experience a few days later, I am glad to say that I could take something from everyone, so Thank you.

In some cases, I took away new Apps or ideas for projects.  In others, I became aware of potential problems and how to avoid them.

My new concern though, is that unlike me, most of my students don't seem to want to learn form a mistake, but would rather blame someone else for a short coming.

I believe that Thomas Edison mentioned that in discovering the lightbulb, he didn't make 1,000 errors, but that he learned a 1,000 ways not to make it, or something to that effect.

With that in mind I give you the link to my 20% project and the 1,000 think I learned from it - No I won't list them all here, just leave you the video to discover them for yourself.

Oh Yeah, tomorrow my students will shoe their video projects, so I will try to post one or two of them.

Thanks for the time we spent together.

Christian

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3T_K--FDsFw

20% project My Music Video

I was excited and nervous about the 20% project.  I love to choose ideas for class, especially ones where technology is involved.  Then Dr. Penny suggest to me that I do a music video for a song I wrote.  I thought, "What a great idea,"  and I already have a song for it.

The problem was finding someone to be in it with me.  I used an assortment of tools for this one including my guitar of course, but also Garage Band to add other instrument tracks and iMovie to add everything together.  Then I finally got my wife to play a role for me.  We ended up in and around the house, in West Chester borough for a few shots and realized that I should have done the outdoor shots before it got cold.  Also had to do little things like put tape down in the backyard so that when I did the time-lapse sequence, I had, roughly, that same location.

All in all, it was a really great experience that gave me insight into some of the details that I can pass on to my students when I assign a video project

Student video project rubric

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yPkQ9udczRVR_m_I8llNwpN3rrF5FJJYxrqKJ3fdT-k/edit

The link above will take you to the handout given to students on my class for the project. I have added the standards to the document - the students didn't get those.

Student Video Project

Projects have been slow moving.  Students waiting for the last minute are finding it difficult to get video segments and are looking to me to do everything for them regardless of my warnings that they needed to start weeks ago when it was assigned.  I hope they are learning from the experience as much as I am!

On the other hand, some groups are moving along pretty well and are in the production phase and it is really fun to see there sour faces turn to excited ones as they see the final product nearing completion and they try to match background music with the sequences they have constructed.

Should also note that we had quite a time Thursday when the servers were down and the videos were due Friday.  Had to extend the deadline to next Thursday(15th) then realized we needed to get all of the video from the iPad before I gave it back.  Made for a hectic day of emailing.

Here is the link to an example of one groups work.  While it doesn't actually meet all of the criteria yet, it does show good usage on the medium.

http://youtu.be/Y-kbjO3OQ6M    


I will post the actual rubric and lesson a bit later tonight.  Right now I need to get the tree out of storage...

Green screen Loads of fun

Tonight we created a green screen movie using iMovie.

It is both fun and funny to do and it would be even more so to do with my students if I could access a green screen.  Might be worth looking into with some minor budget money for this year.  Need to spend it soon.

The URL will take you to my first attempt at creating a video using a green screen.

Enjoy

http://youtu.be/Ywe8HrO-YmU

video project in my class

I decided to assign the video project in my class a few weeks ago.  I first gave them access the iPad and let them shoot a quick scene in the hallways in the building.  I gave zero parameters except it should be Physics related.  That was an easy one!!

But then I brought up the idea of storyboarding and told them that they just had to put their ideas down in a schematic format.  Gave examples and a rubric.  However, the ability to come up with their own idea seems to be very difficult.  I am trying desperately not to show my example video, because I don't want just a dozen videos like mine. I fear I will need to do so as they seem to be having great difficulty when my answer to "What can I do?" is "Whatever you want!"

FRS Story Starters - Fast Rabbit Software

Name of APP: FRS Story Starters
Fee or Free: $1.99

Story Tellers is a wonderful story telling application that provides the who, why, what, where and when for a story that can then be used to create a full story.  The App allows the user to choose which of the five W's are supplied leaving any number of them out allowing for a number of creative choices.  It also will provide all five, giving as much or as little structure as desired.

The App does not allow for writing within it's features so any story writing would need to be done with pen and paper or on a word processor, but if it's simply an idea slot machine your looking for, this is a really good one.

The app also allows for repeated shuffling, as well as a lock feature, that will keep those W's that are locked while shuffling others.  This can be very helpful, when certain elements don't easily blend for beginning story tellers whose imaginations are not yet ready to make giant leaps.

One draw back is that the App does not appear in any search I did for my iPad but only on my desktop computer, limiting its use in the classroom setting to larger PC's rather than slimmer lower cost options.

I would rated this App a 4/5 due to the above mentioned drawback.