Frog's Life Cycle Video

  

Hello everyone, I've included this video as part of my service project.  I found it to be an excellent video that described very well a frog's natural life cycle.  Swetha and Cassandra seemed to enjoy it very much! Hope you do as well.

Service Project Final Day!

Hello again! So today was the last time I meet with Swetha, and Ms. Garcia with Cassandra, and oh what a day it was!  I received Swetha's results of the survey we had sent out with them, and began to develop a spreadsheet with all the information.  They already had a good concept of what a graph was, so they were surprised that they could create a graph on the computer.  It is a simple graph that is not too complex, that way Swetha and Cassandra could be able to read and understand it.

We got down to business with the VoiceThread and had them interact with each other's short productions.  Since they are young students, I created most of the VoiceThread myself and just had Swetha watch and participate in it.  She did help me out in deciding what could be good questions to ask in each slide.  Her eyes would always light up whenever it was her turn to talk.  Then we had each of our students participate in the other one's VoiceThread- so if you hear a second little girl's voice it is Cassandra's.  We did come across bumps in the road... especially when my Internet failed to connect and I had to use Ms. Garcia's computer, but all in all we were able to accomplish this task!

I must say this whole service project really opened up my eyes.  I realized with Swetha and Cassandra that children are always excited to learn new things, and technology should never be considered a barrier!  Swetha picked on pretty fast on all the assignments I would give her.  I hope you have enjoyed reading this journey I- as well as Ms. Garcia- embarked on with these two little girls!

Here is the Frog's Life Cycle on VoiceThread... Enjoy!

Service Project Day 2

I am so thrilled to share with you today's events!  I meet with Swetha once again to continue our journey into the technology world, and I felt so motivated at the end of our session!  Let me first explain what we did... Today we focused on looking up internet resources that could help us learn more about the life cycle of frogs, whether it is in websites, videos, or pictures.  Together, Swetha and I created a GoogleDoc page with our discoveries.  I told Swetha that the internet is an excellent place to find information in different forms. 

After that, Ms. Garcia and I gave our students an assignment- to survey their close friends about life cycles.  We mentioned that with the survey we could create a spreadsheet to better organize our ideas.  In their survey, Swetha and Cassandra are to ask 'What animal would you most like to learn about the life cycle of?'  They felt so excited to get their assignment done and I can't wait for them to come back with the results and create a graph with them!  As Ms. Garcia and I were about to leave, they eagerly asked if we would be going the next day... that just motivated me and showed me that technology is fun and anyone is capable of doing it. That is all for today!

Service Project Day 1

Hello everyone! So today I meet with young Swetha, a kindergartener at a local school.  Swetha is my new "adopted" student, with who I will be working with the next few days.  All my prior posts have been over VoiceThread, internet resources, spreadsheets, and so on.  So what I will be doing with Swetha is teaching her how she can use all this technology to learn new things.  I will also be working with Ms. Garcia who is working with Cassandra, one of Swetha's classmates.  They both are learning about the life cycles, so we decided to relate all of our findings to a frog's life cycle, which Swetha and I are working on, and a chicken's cycle, which Ms. Garcia and Cassandra are working with.  We started them off by creating a blog for them, and Swetha was very excited about her blog.  Afterward, we had Swetha and Cassandra fill out a K-W-L Chart and with that we challenged them to think of some essential questions that could apply to what we're focusing on.  Today was more of an introductory session, and next time we will get down to business!! Until then!

Spreadsheets

I've always known that spreadsheets were available, but me I just wasn't sure if I would ever come across to using them.  Sure I was introduced to spreadsheets back when I was in school, and I have used them a couple of times at previous work places, but other than that I just didn't find a use for them.  Well I was wrong!  I began searching various websites and found out that in fact, you do need spreadsheets for many things.  While I was searching I even found a neat site that helps you create a graph- it is designed more for young children.

I began to create a "test" spreadsheet, and quickly discovered I had forgotten most of the basics of the tools offered.  Once I got the feel for it, I made my spreadsheet over an estimated wedding budget.  Yes it is a random spreadsheet, but hey I had to start somewhere!

Then I referred back to my unit plan and decided to create a spreadsheet that would reflect a mini survey I constructed.  The survey was directed to my class and I just wanted to know what their favorite season was- simple.  After calculating the information I ended up with a pretty neat looking graph!  Ah the love of spreadsheets has struck me.

Camera, Set, Action!

This week I have been finalizing my movie product, and I must say it has been an adventure!  After I had my storyboard set, I began shooting my video- with the help of some friends.  Of course, I did not have a continuous final movie product in my camera at the end, so I had to get some help from movie making tools.  I happened to use the pre-installed Movie Maker on my PC and it worked mighty fine!  There are many options out there, but thankfully computers nowadays already have a program set up- especially for people who don't create movies on a daily basis!

Movie Maker has so many tools that you can play around with.  You can add videos or pictures from your computer, outside memory, or even your webcam!  There are many options to creating a movie on there; the setup is very similar to power point, and you can most definitely create a movie with those options.  As for me, I just uploaded the short clips and pictures that I would be using.  What I also found neat, was that you can use animations to transition the clips from one to the next, or use the visual effects tab to change the image around.  Yet the tool that I most used was the cropping tool!  It really does come in handy, because sometimes there is unwanted space at the beginning or end (sometimes even in the middle) of your shots.  So you do want to take advantage of that tool!  Movie Maker was a great help to me and I know that by exploring you will enjoy it as much as I did!

7 Elements of Digital Storytelling

So I began my most recent project- creating a short movie that ties into my activity plan.  I wanted to find a way to incorporate movie making into the holidays.  I first created my storyboard then I came up with this movie that explains a little of why I choose to focus on Valentine's Day, the history of it, and why it is important to me.  This is similar to what I would like my students to create, yet on the holiday of their choice.

I had to rely on something to create this movie and it was the 7 elements of digital storytelling:
point of view, a dramatic question, emotional content, the gift of your voice, the power of the soundtrack, economy, and pacing.

In my movie in general, I'd say I covered pretty well my point of view on Valentine's Day.  As far as my dramatic question is concerned, it was the question of why it is important to me.  The emotional content I decided to add, what the part where I mention that my dad always gives my sister and me a flower.  It was a personal touch I wanted to add.  The gift of my voice? Well I think you got to hear my voice throughout the whole video!  Although, I would have to say I didn't include the 'power of the soundtrack' it is an important element that can add to your movie as a whole!  The last two- economy and pacing- are very similar and they are just about not overwhelming the audience and keeping a steady pace throughout the video.  These can be difficult to deal with, because at times I wanted to add more information, but I was able to cut it down to a point where it was enough information that you needed to know!

In the end, the movie making process can involve a good amount of your time, but the end result will be worth it!