Week Six

The theme of today was building. All the classes except grade four are firmly in the building phase. Here was todays busy breakdown:

K-14: We continued to work on our family keynote presentations. Students learned to add new slides. They began typing in their name poems, which meant learning to use the enter key. Using Photo Booth, we learned to take videos of ourselves reading the poems. When reading them aloud, some students realized they needed to revise their poem. If parents helped write the poems, they had trouble reading them aloud. After school, Ms. Ieong figured out how to post her animoto onto the blog and how to link the animoto to her google website. We also figured out how to create a homework page. During the week, Ms. Ieong will help students revise their poems and continue typing in the poems to the keynote. Students who revised poems will film them using Photo Booth.

1-104: We had some issues with recording this week. Students accidentally recorded over their previous work in a few groups. Once we realized what happened, we were able to make sure it didn't happen again. About half the groups are finished recording. Ms. Hamlin will make time for the last few groups to finish up so that next week we can add our pictures.

2-204 and 3-304: Scripts and storyboards were finished so we began filming our videos. During this session, we learned to add still images to the movies, add title, edit titles, and format titles. At the end of the period, students shared what they learned. Some of the responses were:
- You can't change the font or color on animated titles.
- If you are using a light picture, you need a dark colored text.
- If you have too many words in your title, the letter will be too hard to see
 Students will work full-force next week to work on building and editing their movies.

4-404: Fourth grade worked on revising their essential questions and refining their subtopics. Some of the groups thought it made sense to divide their main topic by historical periods, so that some students would focus on a specific time in New York history. Other groups found different ways to divide their main topic. Mr. Amft will post the topics/subtopics on the wiki. We helped students define their questions further and discussed how students will research their subtopics. Each student was asked to find 2 Internet web sites and one or two print resources by next week. Students were also given the following challenge: Change the name of your individual page and post your resources and questions on that page. Ms. Moran will send a step-by-step handout for this activity, but not all students are required to do this if they aren't ready. 

Ms. Moran also met with Mr. Amft to discuss the goals of the project. This is a summary of that discussion:

1. Mr. Amft will prepare a rubric that outlines what each individual student must include on their main page. (Ms. Moran will send a sample). 
2. Each student should include primary source documents. Mr. Amft felt that it would be best to provide students with some sample primary source documents for their first try. Ms. Moran and Mr. Amft will help locate samples students can use to get their topics started.
3. Each group should have a  map of some type for their group page. Groups will have to figure out what type of map makes sense for their topic.
4. Each group should have one or more non-technology pieces for their project. This can include poster, brochures, dioramas, games, speeches and skits. We can use still and video pictures to showcase these on the wiki.

5-504: Fifth grade had a slightly shorter period, since they were preparing for the social studies test on Monday. We still managed to get a lot done. All the groups have very good plans, and have done a good amount of research. Some groups have even begun typing up the text for the various pages. Today we divided the tasks so that each member of the group had a specific job. The priority was to get scripts and/or storyboards completed so that filming could begin next week. Many groups also need to find and/or take pictures for their secondary web pages.

I just wanted to mention how great all the students, teachers, and administrators are doing for this project. There is a buzz in the classrooms and I'm really looking forward to our December presentation day!