I created a digital story on Windows Movie Maker. The purpose of this digital storyboard was to inform my 4th grade students about the final activity, creating vegetable cars, that will close out their Science unit for Motion & Design this school year. This was the first time I had ever created such an elaborate endeavor. This task took me a total of 8 hours over 3 days to accomplish but I was extremely proud of my first ever digital story. Learning to import pictures, video, and music was a massive undertaking. Figuring out how to time the music to coincide with the pictures is what I struggled with the most. However, once the assignment was completed I was impressed with it. I believe this digital storyboard will inspire and challenge my 4th graders to design the most incredible vegetable cars for this years 2nd Annual Veggie Car Race. I'm excited to see their creations this year!
I had the opportunity to give a presentation of the Digital Veggie Story with my graduate school colleagues. This offered me the chance to receive feedback on my project. Examples of my classmates positive comments were "Good mix of audio, reinforcing images, and interviews" and "Great presentation! I loved your project with the kids. The music was great!" Examples of some of the constructive comments were "I would maybe add less words on the slides or have them stay up a little longer" and "It might help to add a voice over for some text for slow readers/ those reading below level."
After reflecting over the feedback form we used in class for this presentation, I would have to agree with their adjustments. Therefore, I will make the necessary changes to my digital story like stretch out the slide in order to extend the written text for a longer duration. The next time I will use more student video with voice over support for struggling readers. These new changes will ensure that ALL students are able to watch, read, and enjoy what will be coming ahead.
The benefits that this digital story brings to my 4th graders is that it offers exposure to what they can create with technology. I could make the time to teach the purpose of digital stories and lessons on how to build /design their own digital story. I think I would suggest a digital story of one to three minutes, which would offer differentiation, where students could work independently, with a partner or a small group (3-4 students). Working collaboratively will help this challenging undertaking as I myself found out.
However, I could envision a few limitations or obstructions for using this technology; students could become frustrated or angry, collaboration doesn't happen between people, laptop cart is not available once every 3 weeks and hence be difficult to complete the assignment in just 1 week. The only way to overcome these limitations is to discuss how how the students might feel in a morning meeting discussion before starting the assignment. Communicating to my grade level partners the need for using the laptops on additional days would also help to accomplish my task.
Overall, the technology experience in creating this student friendly project was invaluable. This assignment has inspired me to think of developing other digital stories that will inform, persuade, entertain, be historical, or even personal. Would you be willing to try? Lets get you started.
I had the opportunity to give a presentation of the Digital Veggie Story with my graduate school colleagues. This offered me the chance to receive feedback on my project. Examples of my classmates positive comments were "Good mix of audio, reinforcing images, and interviews" and "Great presentation! I loved your project with the kids. The music was great!" Examples of some of the constructive comments were "I would maybe add less words on the slides or have them stay up a little longer" and "It might help to add a voice over for some text for slow readers/ those reading below level."
After reflecting over the feedback form we used in class for this presentation, I would have to agree with their adjustments. Therefore, I will make the necessary changes to my digital story like stretch out the slide in order to extend the written text for a longer duration. The next time I will use more student video with voice over support for struggling readers. These new changes will ensure that ALL students are able to watch, read, and enjoy what will be coming ahead.
The benefits that this digital story brings to my 4th graders is that it offers exposure to what they can create with technology. I could make the time to teach the purpose of digital stories and lessons on how to build /design their own digital story. I think I would suggest a digital story of one to three minutes, which would offer differentiation, where students could work independently, with a partner or a small group (3-4 students). Working collaboratively will help this challenging undertaking as I myself found out.
However, I could envision a few limitations or obstructions for using this technology; students could become frustrated or angry, collaboration doesn't happen between people, laptop cart is not available once every 3 weeks and hence be difficult to complete the assignment in just 1 week. The only way to overcome these limitations is to discuss how how the students might feel in a morning meeting discussion before starting the assignment. Communicating to my grade level partners the need for using the laptops on additional days would also help to accomplish my task.
Overall, the technology experience in creating this student friendly project was invaluable. This assignment has inspired me to think of developing other digital stories that will inform, persuade, entertain, be historical, or even personal. Would you be willing to try? Lets get you started.