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Permalink Reply by KarenJanowski on May 15, 2008 at 5:13pm

One of my grad students used PhotoStory 3 (PC only, free download here ) and created a transition video for her fifth grade students on the autism spectrum. The video was a tour of the new school they would be transitioning to including new staff. She did an excellent job and photostory is very easy to use. Her students will watch the movie throughout the summer to prepare them for the change to the new middle school.
Another option is to use Voice Thread which is also free for educators and easy to use.

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Permalink Reply by Josette on May 15, 2008 at 7:48pm

I like this idea - thanks Karen. I forgot a couple of details: I'm having the second graders create the project for any new children. I started to create something in PhotoStory about 3 weeks ago about our Earth Day lesson; I was going to use it to demonstrate how the students could take 5 photos/pix and make a mini story based upon what they learned; however, I had to download the software to a borrowed laptop; additionally, when I tried to present this in my grad course, the filters would not let me access PhotoStory - it was a complete mess!
I find it very frustrating to plan and do the legwork in order to integrate technology, only to have obstacles detering it from even happening. Has this ever happened to you?

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Permalink Reply by Kathy Epps on May 15, 2008 at 9:31pm

Our school is spread over 2 sites - Early Childhood (PreK - 2) on one campus and Primary and Secondary on another. The last unit our Year 3 kids do it a "Welcome" unit for the Year 2's coming up. They start by looking at what they were afraid of, or curious about, or excited about, moving to the new campus when they were in Year 2, and then take pictures, make drawings, etc., about those places or situations. Last year it turned into a Comic Life book to give to the Year 2's when they came to visit. I don't know what shape this year's work will take - looks like it might be a photo album (iPhoto) with text.

Sounds like you might want to make an illustrated map of the school. Karen's VoiceThread suggestion sounds good too. Or you could create a blog, and use the format to post a photo, with a few words under it to describe it. Do you know the blog Here and There Japan? Annie Donwerth Chikamatsu "write(s) about and take pictures of the things we see, use, and do in our daily life in Japan. " It is very elegant and simple.

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Permalink Reply by Josette on May 16, 2008 at 5:02pm

I'm new to all of this technology but I want to learn as much as I can. I have to find out more about the Voice Thread - is that just a recording on the MP3 or another device? I'll check out the blog Here and There Japan - maybe we'll do it on a smaller scale that is relevant to our school. Most of my students are in the K-2 range; however, this project would be good for any newcomer - Kindergartener or older. I also found out that I may be getting a 5th or 6th grader from China in September; so it benefit him as well.

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Permalink Reply by Kathy Epps on May 16, 2008 at 10:10pm

I found VoiceThread a little tricky at first. Do some practice ones to get the hang of it before you assemble the kids "for real". Have a look at this blog post to see the same story in 3 formats. I made one audio recording with the kids and teacher gathered around a Mac Mini using Garage Band. Then I exported the finished recording to iTunes as an mp3, and used that file on all 3 versions. iTunes feeds easily to iMovie.

I had to cut the sound file into segments so that I could upload the right bit to each picture on VoiceThread. That took a bit of time.

The video segment on that blog post is hosted at Teacher/Learner, which is a ning I've made for our teachers to experiment with. Nings are a great invention! You might want to make one for yourself, just to host your media work. It's not blocked by our school, so for me it is the only safe place to put video on the web (to embed on other sites - like blogs) that students will use...everything else they might access there, if they click through, is under your control.

Perhaps you would like to create a ning for yourself, as a "media showcase", and then gradually add content as you need it (and other teachers/students as members - when they see what you are doing, they will get interested, excited, a little jealous, and then enthusiastic!) . Classroom 2.0 is a very successful, full blown ning, but you can create one on a minimalist scale - just you or a few other teachers. (Here are the details about how to have the adds removed if the ning is for student use.)

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Permalink Reply by Alice Mercer on May 18, 2008 at 9:02am

Try Larry Ferlazzo's "Best of" series to find good resources:

http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/about/my-best-of-series/

he uses these with newcomers to create content.

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