Posted on December 3, 2010 by kschaefer

1920’s Report 21st Century Style

Students in Mr. Dahlgren’s history class were given the task of reporting on the 1920 using VoiceThread. These students chose to us iMovie to assemble the report and then exported it as a QuickTime movie to upload to VoiceThread for sharing and distribution. I think it shows good design and story telling elements. The students were self-motivated to undertake the more complex project but in the end delivered a powerful report. Great job and story, Kit and Emma.

Posted on October 15, 2010 by kschaefer

Digital Image Project

My Foundations of Technology Students did a 3 day project called Something on Campus Digital Camera Project”. After some initial instruction, we went out side and shot images. After editing and applying affects, students created slides. We also talked about how to communicate with each other in the VoiceThread. I am trying to build their collaborative communication skills (From Will Ferriter) so they could help each other learn and take risks.

This was the game plan:

Day 1

Begin to learn how to use the Lumix ZS3 Digital Cameras (in pairs) to take pictures and import into iPhoto.

We will go over how to work the cameras and then go outside to the garden area to take some pictures.

Tips: Rule of 3rds. http://tlc.ousd.k12.ca.us/~acody/digi4.html

Day 2

Working with 2 images, Use the editing tools in iPhoto to adjust image. Learn about the many editing tools that are available.

Day 3

Create a Keynote Slides for each image and add text to describe or add any writing that would help identify important parts of the image.

Export as images from Keynote and upload to this assignment. Also upload to your digital portfolio and add comments.

I took their images from our Moodle course and created a VoiceThread that they then commented on each others images. I think they turned out well.

This link will take you to the VoiceThread I created with the images and the students shared their thoughts and comments.

http://voicethread.com/share/1398302/

Posted on September 27, 2010 by kschaefer

Foundations of Technology 5 Student Portfolios

With my new Foundations of Technology course for 5th grade students, I wanted to students to develop an online portfolio that could live outside of both the classroom and our school. My goal is to give the students an opportunity to share their work and reflect on what it means to them. The idea of parents or other students also sharing their comments is a secondary goal. A third goal will not be obvious since the actual portfolio is the showcase for finished projects, and that is creativity, design and even fundamental technology skills centered around formats, copyright, privacy, communication, and others that are embedded into the projects we create. I used the term scaffolding with the class today as I wanted them to begin to connect the things we do in class instead of thinking, we start new each time. I was prompted to talk about this due to the age old question of “can I, can ya, or can you”. I have a standard answer in that I ask them the question of “Where is Kenya?”. Often they understand this play on words although I feel like I am undoing some long learned rule of learning. I told the students today that if I taught you how to use it last week, it is OK to use it this week as that is the scaffolding part of this class.

So, I share now the portfolios of my students as we work on creating a digital portfolio using VoiceThread. For the price of a site license, this is incredible software for our students to begin telling the story of their learning. Remember that learning is often messy. That term is from a web site that I have read for years. http://learningismessy.com/blog/

PpFeKD