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!