Tag Archives: iPads

Toy Tales: A Green Screen Project

Posted on by MrsLeonardo
Reply

GreenScreen3

Way back in late September and early October, my students got their first experience with DoInk’s Green Screen app. I mentioned here that the kids read Jim Murphy’s informational text, “The Great Fire”, and talked about a project they were going to complete, but I never posted an update about the project!

The Task: After reading Jim Murphy’s text, students had to use toys and DoInk’s Green Screen App to create a video summary of the text.

The Technology:

  1. iPads: students used the DoInk Green Screen, iMovie, Explain Everything, Google Classroom, and Google Drive apps
  2. Chromebooks: students used the Chromebooks to access Google Classroom for their assignments and to write their script. They worked on their script with their group, and Google Docs allowed them to work on the script simultaneously

GreenScreen4

The Materials:

  1. Through DonorsChoose, I was able to secure funding to purchase this chroma key, or green screen, backdrop and stand.
  2. I purchased about 15 tri-fold Elmer’s cardboard project display boards for $1 each at Dollar Tree, and my husband and I spent about two to three hours on a Saturday spray painting the boards various colors. The DoInk Green Screen app let’s students film on any color background.
  3. I also found green folders, construction paper, and wrapping paper at Dollar Tree. I was also able to purchase several green muslin backgrounds on Amazon. through DonorsChoose.
  4. I went to multiple thrift stores over the course of two weeks and purchased as many different types of toys as possible; buying the toys was easy. Sanitizing everything was another story! Students brought in their own Lincoln Logs, Legos, Barbies, and other toys.

GreenScreen6

The Time Frame:

  1. Whewph! From start to finish this took about ten class periods.  I have four ELA classes, and my smallest class has 27 students (my largest had 35 at the time of the project). I encouraged students to work in groups, but I did have four or five students per class period who really wanted to work alone.

Troubleshooting:

I always tell my students, “There’s one of me, and over 30 of you!” We follow the 3B4T rule in class: use your brain, browse the web, ask three buddies, then ask the teacher!

I also created tutorials for FAQs, and created a Hyperdoc with links to YouTube videos for students to watch.

Hyperdoc
Here are a few of videos from the project:

It was a great experience! Now, it’s almost time for round two; stay tuned!

6th Graders Analyze “If” by Rudyard Kipling

Posted on by MrsLeonardo
Reply

if-stephenguyatt

Image Source

We finally wrapped up Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis! I’ve heard positive reviews from students, and I’m glad they liked the book. With Common Core State Standards, there’s a big push for students to be able to analyze literary and non-fiction texts. When we read The Lightning Thief, students read an excerpt from Joseph Campbell’s The Hero’s Journey, and ended up writing an analysis explaining how Percy Jackson followed the archetype of a hero. With Bud, Not Buddy, we read Steve Jobs’s 2009 Stanford University commencement speech, and compared fictional character Bud Caldwell to Steve Jobs. Students were also required to closely read President Barack Obama’s 2009 back to school speech, answer text-dependent questions, and compare the text with Bud, Not Buddy and the life of Steve Jobs.

Now that we’ve finished our novel, the last part of our unit included reading Rudyard Kipling’s classic poem “If”; while reading the poem, students were asked to identify personification and alliteration, use context clues to define unknown words, and answer four questions about the poem. The last and final element will be for students to list themes found in Bud, Not Buddy and If, and write an analysis comparing the novel and the poem.

I read the poem aloud first, and then we watched two YouTube videos (video A and video B) featuring the poems. I stopped the videos multiple times to ask questions, have students discuss, and make annotations to the text.

Instead of paper, we used iPads this week. I’m a Chromebook kind of girl, but because the laptops were being used for state testing, I couldn’t get my hands on them. Listed below is a student’s work:

Screen Shot 2015-05-01 at 6.32.30 PM

 

Screen Shot 2015-05-01 at 6.32.44 PM

Screen Shot 2015-05-01 at 6.25.23 PM After students finished this assignment, they used the Explain Everything App on iPad to create screencast presentations. The presentations allowed the students to verbally state their reasoning for their answers. Check out a few gems!

Great things: 

  • Students were able to get creative with their presentations.
  • NO PAPER 🙂
  • Students helped one another with projects.

Next time:

  • Allow more time for screencasts. We only had two periods to complete the screencasts, and many students wanted more time.
  • Have students type their answers to the questions first to create a script of some sort.
  • Remind students to verbally refer to the text when answering questions (we do this with writing, but they forgot to use evidence, or refer to the text, when answering questions; many students drew circles around the area of text they were discussing, and I thought that was acceptable).
  • Remind students to state just their first name when recording their screencast (because…you know…COPPA!)