Creating Movie Titles-304

Friday was a very productive day. Ms. Moran worked with 304 and the ELL students to help the mentors create movie titles. The ELL students received a brand new Lap Top Cart and we will be moving all the movies into their computers this week to edit them together with Ms. Kubinyi's class. THe students loved being a part of a media world that was so new to them. Slowly they are breaking away from their shyness!!!Happy Holidays to all!!!

304 creating Movie Titles

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Day 6 – Website Ahoy!

We actually have a name for our website and a holding place on the web. The name, selected by students voting, is Book Wizard, which seems like a great start. Students who are artistically inclined may create a logo over the holidays and we will vote on the best logo on January 7, 2011. Logo’s must be no more than 5” long and 2” high and must include the “Book Wizard” name. 

Here is a brief summary, by grade:

• First – All groups finished recording, except one group in which both students were absent. Ms. Hamlin will catch them up next week. Students are now looking for images to put into their podcasts and finishing up the keynotes. Podcasts will be imported into the keynotes and saved as movies. Ms. Hamlin will create “Pages” documents for the web pages, as students will most likely not have time this round.
• Second – Students were very excited about their second interview with the author of Jack the Cat is very Brave. Groups are just finishing up their second storyboards. Next up, students will create fun interactive online games related to their books to add to the website.
• Third –Because we are using new computers we had to spend a little time setting up new log ins. We didn’t have the adapter for the projector, so students had to practice their listening skills to get the job done.  Then, students in Ms. Schembri’s class introduced their partners in Ms. Kubinyi’s class to iMovie. We began to add titles and credits to the movie. Students were left with the task of finding background images to use with the green-screen video.
• Fourth – Audio files have all been re-recorded and most of the images are in place. Next, students learned how to add sound effects and music into their podcast. We discussed how to select appropriate sounds and how to use “ducking” to make sure sounds and music didn’t overtake our voiceovers. Next, students are being asked to  use “Pages” to create their web pages.
• Fifth – We had an extended period today as fifth grade was introduced to Dreamweaver. In this lesson students learned how to create an html page in their folder, insert the JPG image onto the html page, resize the jpg, create a layer on top of them image, and insert a movie into that layer so that when you open the html page into a folder the movie plays in the appropriate place.

I hope everyone has a happy and healthy winter vacation. I will see you all in the New Year, and we will have lots still to do!

1-104

We have all storyboarded our book reviews, and are now recording them, using Garageband. It's always interesting (sometimes hilarious) to see how the students perceive the review process. It's a challenge to keep everyone quiet during the actual recording, but the groups are doing pretty well. Groups that are waiting to record are finding images to add to their Keynote pages. If we can finish the recordings today, we will be able to put some finishing touches on the presentations.

504 and 502 update

We have finished the work we needed to do with keynote and now we are ready to use garage band for the pod casts. I think this is going to be great. The mentors in class 504 got ready for this by learning garage band and is now ready to put what they have learned into action. I cant wait to see how it comes out. ttfn

5-504

We are ready to make a website. We learned how to make a pages document into a pdf and then into a picture so we can use it in Dreamweaver as the background of each website. We are ready to start working on the website. It will be an exciting time. The kids are really into it. We have been working very hard and have been putting much effort into everything. They cant wait to see how the site comes out. When everyone is done with their pages document drop it in the drop box please so we can put your work up.

2nd Grade Author Interviews

We had our second author interview today, through Skype with Tabitha Grace Smith. She wrote this awesome book Jack the Kitten is Very Brave, that will be published in January. The class loved talking to her through the computer and some of their questions were hilarious. We have one more author visit scheduled for January 7th. They are learning about the writing process in so many ways!

Day 5 - Zooming Ahead

Today flew by so quickly as we moved ahead. This is our half-way mark, and although presentation day seems like a long ways off, with the Winter holidays coming up, the time will pass before you know it. Luckily each of our classes has accomplished so much already.

Our web page is starting to take shape. We established a few parameters for the site. There are three types of pages being added to the site. They are: Book Pages, Author Pages, and Reviewer Pages. Teachers will be using Dropbox to share "Pages" files and movies and podcasts with the fifth grade students.

A special note must be made about the third and fifth grade mentoring programs. As mentioned earlier, classes 304 and 504 students are mentoring students in ELL classes. They are using their computer and movie-making experience of the past two years and using it to help students who are just starting to use these new technologies. I must express how proud I am of how this program is working. Students are truly acting as mentors, supporting the learning and creativity of their peers and sharing what they know in a constructive way. Watching the students work together and seeing the level of camaraderie within the groups is powerful. I hope to see this program continue beyond the scope of this project.

Individually, each class is moving along well. Here is a brief summary, by grade:

• First – Students began recording their scripts into Garage Band. It was difficult at first, as we needed to learn to be quiet for each other while recording. Students also needed to learn to speak loudly and clearly, and with enthusiasm. We are about halfway through recording.
• Second – Each group has finished their first movie and background, and Ms. Newman has used Dropbox to share them with the 5th grade. Each group is beginning their second storyboard for another book review. In addition, students are preparing questions for their second author interview, which will be a Skype interview, as the author lives in California. Ms. Moran helped Ms. Newman with the logistics of taping the interview (using two cameras). Several students are working on creating author pages to go with these interviews.
• Third – Students began filming their scripts using “green screen” technology. Our “green screen” was handmade, using green bulletin board paper taped together. Students had to take turns with their parts since the whole group couldn’t fit in the scene. Students learned that often movies are shot out-of-sequence.
• Fourth – Students listened to each others’ completed audio recordings and found many things that needed improvement. Some students spoke to softly or not clearly enough. Other students rushed through their words, stuttered, or spoke without enough drama and enthusiasm. With this helpful feedback we decided most of the podcasts needed to be re-recorded. Then we learned how to add our images into the podcast, how to adjust the length of time each image showed, and how to preview the podcast.
• Fifth – Class 504 has two important jobs and we squeezed them into one, intense period. First, they needed to learn the basics of GarageBand so they can turnkey this with Ms. Maria’s class. Although they never used GarageBand before, they quickly learned how to record their voice, edit voice tracks, add images, edit images, and add sound effects and music. Next, they began the first steps of creating the web pages for all of the books. First they adjusted the “Pages” document and exported it as a PDF file. Then they converted the PDF file into a JPG. Finally they created a folder for the PDF file. This will be the basis for each web page. Students took copious notes so that they could replicate these steps with all the “Pages” documents they get from all the classes. We emphasized the importance of file and folder names.

This is truly an exciting time for TAG students and their partner classes. Students are working very hard and we can definitely see the results!

Podcasts Ready for Bells, Whistles

The students in the fourth grade recorded theri scripts and gathered images for the podcasts of their book reviews. Thank you, Mr. Isles for organizing our new laptop cart. Now, if we only had one more laptop, every student would have their own! Also, students are keeping their filesd on "their" computer. Next step will be to try and get them using DropBox?

Speaking of which, again; thanks Mr. Isles; DropBox is up and running on my computer.

2nd Grade

We had a very exciting Friday. Susanna Pitzer, the author of Not Afraid of Dogs, visited the class, read her book aloud and the class interviewed her. It was an amazing experience! We have 2 other author interviews set up for the students. We will be interviewing Tabitha Smith whose book Jack the Cat is Very Brave is coming out in December and we will also be interviewing Jack Batcher who writes Silly Joke books on January 7th. We also finished our first review video and we will be finishing the pages for the video and start new review iMovies tomorrow. We are patiently awaiting for David A. Adler, Cynthia Rylant and Mike Thaler to respond to our author letters too!!

This week in Class 5-504

This week we have just about finished out second imovie. We discussed how we need to make sure the imovies are interesting to watch. Most of the movies were of the two students talking in an interview the whole time. We are now working on...

-detaching the audio and putting pictures of what they are talking about instead

-adding captions

-adding picture in picture

-adding pictures with voice over

We are hoping that this makes the movies more interesting.

Class 5-504 and 5-502 Update

We are working on our second e-book with keynote. Class 5-502 is becoming more familiar with the technology. Our next step is to add voice by working with garage band. We need a refresher from Ms. Moran.

Day 4 – New Tools

Today was about learning new technologies. First, the software order came in. This meant a quick discussion on how to best use InspireData and ComicLife within the project. Next, we discussed using a free online tool (Dropbox) to foster file sharing. Teachers were invited into Dropbox. Ms. Moran created a handout to help use this tool. Teachers can post student work into a shared Dropbox so that the fifth grade can upload it to the website. Finally, the  Adobe CS5 was installed into four fifth-grade machines. This was a more complicated process than originally believed, but finally we were successful!

Individually, each class is moving along well. Here is a brief summary, by grade:

• First – Students began working on their storyboards. We discussed the idea of a storyboard. Then we created sentence starters such as “Our favorite part of the book was__________” and “One interesting fact we learned was _________.” Students used these to help them plan out their storyboards. Next week we will create and find graphics to go with our storyboards.
• Second – Second graders interviewed their first author, which was very exciting. Afterwards, we went back to Pages to continue working on our webpage design. We discussed layering, shadows, text size and alignment. We also created a placeholder for our movies. Ms. Newman will help students put their finished products into Dropbox.
• Third – Students from both classes worked cooperatively to edit and finish their scripts. We practiced reading the scripts aloud to make sure the sentences sounded good. We also created prop lists, costume lists, and suggested background and sound effects to help us with filming. Ms. Moran showed Ms. Kubinyi how to use PhotoBooth. She will turn key this with her students during the week. Ms. Moran showed Ms. Schembri and several students how to “green screen.”
• Fourth – We continued working with Garage Band. Now that we have the newer computers, with the upgraded software, we needed to review some of the steps for recording and editing voices. We also practiced reading scripts with dramatic voice. Students need to finish recordings and to collect images for their podcasts (1 image for every 5 seconds of audio). We discussed file management to keep all images in one place. Students can use photos, images from the Internet, and/or draw images.
• Fifth – Ms. Heinz and Ms. Moran reviewed Adobe CS5 to determine how best to use these new tools to create the website.  Ms. Moran needs to make a simple handout to help students go through the steps of taking a pages document, importing it as an image into a web page, adding layers to put video and multimedia onto the page, and create hot spots for links. In addition, students will be using Garage Band for their next (second) book review. This is a new technology for them. We discussed how it will be introduced and used.

 There is still much to do, but we are really making wonderful progress. Everyone is working so hard and the third and fifth graders are taking their role of mentors very seriously.

Third Grade - Watch Our Animoto

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Third Grade - Coop. Learning/Teaching

Today the student completed alot of work. CLass 304 met with Ms. Kubinyi's class and collaborated on script writing. We made a list of props, costumes and sound effects we will be using. Ms. Moran was very helpful in showing both classes how to green screen to show different animal habitats. We look forward to begin filming on Monday.

Class 5-504 Update

My class researched the author and then made a script pretending to be a author and interview. They filmed themselves and then imported their video into imovie. They are about done with the The last thing that they did was detach the audio from one of their video clips and replace the video with still pictures to make the video more interesting. I am hoping that this Friday the students will be don't with their second imovie.

Podcast Reviews

My students have finished writing scripts for podcasts and we've tried using Garageband to record our voices and to edit. I'm wondering if external microphones might be useful; do we have any here at the school? Also, the Google doc is set up to enter book review data.

Names submitted for the site:

Book Mania
Can You Read Me One More Book?
The Insider: Book Edition
Book Buster
The Reading Hive
Bookwizard.com
Books for Kids A to Z

They all sound pretty good to me. Can you folks run in class voting? Also I am thinking about using PowerPoint (because I know it well) to do something like the kinetic whatever we talked about. Oh, and we have the new laptops that can run faster, better.

2nd Grade Author Letters

Our class is finishing up the letters they wrote to the authors of the first book they reviewed. I will be sending them out with self-addressed envelopes, so hopefully we will get some responses. Ms. Hamlin was so helpful and let me know that David A. Adler wrote the students she worked with on Long Island back, so we are definitely writing to him. I also have one author that will be coming in to visit our class. Susanna Pitzer works with Ms. Ramirez's class through Behind the Books and Ms. Ramriez suggested I contact her. She said she would drop by out class, read her book, and take time to let the students ask questions. She also said that she would send a scan of the book cover and a picture of herself to add to the website too!