I really enjoyed all of the tasks this week. A main reason for this is that I really feel like I can bring the technology, tools, and skills that I am learning into my classroom. For example, my students will be doing a project on popular culture in the 1950s and 1960s. When we were assigned the task of created a 30 second film on Animoto, I decided to focus on 1950s popular culture. Then at school yesterday, I came up with the first way that I plan to integrate Animoto into my classroom with this project. Basically, what I plan to do is once students have their assigned topic, they will look for 12 pictures that best represent their popular culture topic. Then, the will create their 30 second Animoto short and share with the class as a preview of what they will be doing (kind of like they do for movies to raise the interest level). Yesterday, I showed my students my Animoto that I created for this class to introduce them to the project. The students really got excited, not only about the project, but especially about creating their own Animoto.
Also, I really enjoyed the chapter from Presentation Zen and the accompanied video that we watched this week. The ideas presented really forced me to reevaluate the presentations that I am currently giving and how the whole idea of “less is more” is a great method to follow. I really like the way that I was able to revise my previous presentation and create an accompanied handout. Being someone who usually loves to give a lot of details, I felt that the handout still allowed me to be specific, but less wordy on during my actual presentation. Now the hard part, I have to go back and revise my other presentations to allow them to be effective as well.
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Jenny, your ideas about the popular culture project are great. I happened to look at your Animoto and I can see how it captures the feel of a time period. I can see that students would be very motivated by this assignment. It is a wonderful way to share their research in an alternative way. Perhaps you could also have them place short caption like pieces of text into the Animoto as well. Rhenatta did that in her Animoto and it was very effective.
ReplyDeleteI too was impressed by the chapter in Presentationzen. Like you, it made me rethink my entire approach to power point. If you haven't had a chance yet, take a look at the power points in the "Best Presentation" link. They are amazing. I think I finally have a perspective on what is happening after viewing the one on health care reform.
I am with you on the Zen text. It is great to have a textbook that really helps you, verses preaches to you. It takes you step by step and makes you feel like it is all possible. I really want to try animoto with my fourth graders. I am still trying to find a way that will work my curriculum. We are starting and animal report so maybe pictures of their animal choice would be a good start.
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