This was a big learning experience for me today. Our process is complex, but many things seem a bit complex when you are learning for the first time. One thing I will do more consciously from now on is remind myself how my students are feeling when they are doing new things. I was certainly on the bottom of the learning curve when the procedure for the digital storybook began, but feel as if the concept and procedures are becoming more clear as I do the work. It is exciting to think that I will have a finished film at the end of next week. The prototypes we viewed seemed so professional. I'd like to get to be proficient in this medium so we can use video storybooks in some professional development presentations at department meetings and at staff meetings. And my eighth graders would probably love to produce movies. I'd like to do a project related to one of our novels or maybe poetry and assign it as a group project with a final "academy awards" day. We could even do a little buffet and beverage thing to make it a fancy occasion.
The Treasure Hunt presentations were quite helpful. I liked the Laura Candler website and marvel at people who have enough time to share their good ideas and maintain a website while teaching full-time! The kidsread site will definitely be one resource that I will use for student exploration when I do poetry. My students like to specialize in their favorite poet or a theme and that site makes it easy to dig deeper into those. Even though the poetry site is often under construction, that site continues to update and become better for those who might use it. Hearing actual poets recite their works might really appeal to students. I like that idea because you get the voice and intonation of the author and that might help to promote greater understanding and pleasure when reading a poem. All you have to do is listen and enjoy.
I am especially glad that we can do our audio segments on audioblog because this will simplify the process of getting audio to the computer. Hopefully, the sound quality will be high. I am thinking that individual sound bites might make it easier on the editing process, but since I haven't done that part am unsure about the practicality of 25 separate audioblogs. It seems that I could get the exact time down before editing to save time. So taking the time to record them might avoid audio editing glitches.
More will follow after the weekend! Enjoy.
1 comment:
Hi Mary
I would recommend doing a few slides per audio Gabcast file (try to have no more than 8-10 files). Otherwise it can be a lot of moving audio around and some can get lost. The sound quality is usually pretty high (although sometimes we need to get rid of the beep at the end of the call--which we can do in imovie).
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