Getting the Ingredients

You will take your story outline and create a story board for this project. Your story board is like a “recipe”. Before starting to bake a cake, you need a recipe to follow. So let’s think of this project in the following way:

Storyboard is the recipe.
Images, text, and music are the ingredients.
Windows Movie Maker is the oven.
Digital story is the cake.

It is important to have a place to organize and save your “ingredients.” You will have the option of using a folder in your pdrive, your diigo account, or creating an album in Picasa. If you want to be able to access your images from home the last two options are the way for you to go. You will have both classes this week to find your images. Next week we will move on to music. Please be sure to use advanced search techniques and filters in Google. You also may want to use Flickr Creative Commons, Nettrekker, or Sweet Search to try and find your images.
Mrs. Knittle just shared another great site for finding images. It is called Compfight. We also had a discussion about why we need to filter our image searches. You are publishers and reusing images and music. Because we are publishers, we can only use images and music which have been licensed for this purpose. I know it is hard, but it is so important to keep your digital footprint and reputation "clean."
You will also need to create a Google Doc, or some other method of recording the citations for all of your images as you will need these for the credits of your digital story.

Digital/Photo Storytelling

This week we will begin our last big project of the school year. You will be creating a digital story or a photo story. What is a digital story or photo story? You can find out by checking out this slide share, Digital Storytelling. This should answer some of your questions. As I reviewed your survey results I noticed many of you told me you wanted more time on projects. We will do a little bit of preliminary work and then you will be given a good amount of time to work on your photo story. Before you get started with this project we will need to do a review of copyright. It is very important for you understand what you can and cannot use. This will be our activator for class one. We will start by watching a video, “Copyright, What’s Copyright?” and doing a follow up activity using a PDF. You and a partner will be completing a table as a “ticket to leave” during the first class. I have put a list of resources for you to check out at the bottom of this page. Much of your work for the remainder of this year will be creating this photo story and working on your blog. I hope you had a great vacation and are ready to be creative!

What is Copyright?
Digital Storytelling
Digital Storytelling Tips
31 of My Favorite Digital Storytelling Sites

Classes Today with Substitute

I am sorry I am not there today, but I am not feeling well. Please read this blog post carefully. I am sure you will be able to complete today’s lessons by following directions and asking a neighbor for help if you don’t understand something. You know my rules and I know I can count on you to do a good job! Please know if you have not yet presented your work from last week to the class you will be doing this during second class this week when I am back. (This give you more time to prepare and rehearse!)
Please start off class by taking the Student Feedback Survey. This is an anonymous survey and I am very interested in your responses. I will be using this survey to improve my teaching. So please take your time and be honest.
**If you are on teams 7A or 7C you will need to share your collections with your teachers. If you remember we created collections a couple of weeks ago for English, Science, Social Studies, and Science. The Google doc, “Teacher Emails” is a list of your teachers Google “mail” addresses you will need to be able share your work easily.
How to Share a Collection:
1. Right click on or hover over the collection in your Google doc list.
2. You will see a “drop down” arrow; click on it
3. Hover over “share” and a second pop up will appear
4. Click on “share” in this window.
5. You will see the sharing form. Click on add people and paste the correct address from the list here.
6. Leave all the settings alone and click on “share and save”.
7. You will have a message pop up asking you if you are sure, say “yes”
8. Click done
9. Repeat this with the other collections and emails.
**Please remember your teacher doesn’t receive email at this address. If you need to email your teachers you need to use their address similar to white_kim@barnstable.k12.ma.us.

Once you have taken care of the survey and sharing collections (7A & 7C only) you will move on to the lesson for today.
The objective is:
You will be able to create a word search using Google spreadsheets.
If you have not already done so, you will need to sign in to your Google Apps and go to your Docs. On a piece of paper, please brainstorm 15 words about a topic. This topic does not have to be school related, but the words have to be appropriate for school. In other words, you could create a word search about the Boston Red Sox. Once you have created a list and signed in to your Google account, please follow the directions found at Pamela Fox’s blog. The post is called, “Creating a Wordsearch Using Google Spreadsheet.” Be sure to read the directions carefully. You do not have to paste in the URL. If you search the gadgets, you will find more than one which will create a word search. If you cannot find one, you may use the directions with the URL to make this work.
Once you have finished this word search, you may share it with a friend or print a copy. If there is enough time in class, please create a second one, or use a different gadget. There is a cool looking flash card gadget. You may want to try that one out as well!!

Just a reminder: Playing games on the computer or on someone else’s blog is not acceptable for class. If you should finish your work and want to do some work on your blog or prepare for your presentation during second class; you may do so.
Please be sure to sign out of all accounts you have logged in to and log off the computer properly.
ILT#9 please be sure to shut down after you have logged off. Could a couple of you volunteer to make sure the rest of the computers are shutdown and the lab is all set?! Please do not erase the board. Thanks!

I know I can count on you to do a good job for the substitute today!
Thanks- Mrs, White

So What Else Can You Do With a Spreadsheet?

We have looked at spreadsheets as a way to create a database, and explored how to use the function key and its many formulas to help us save time with calculations such as adding (sum) and finding percents. But what else can you do with a spreadsheet? This week you will check out Pamela Fox’s blog post, “Creating a Wordsearch Using Google Spreadsheet.” First you will need to brainstorm 15 words about a particular subject. It can be anything appropriate for school, but does not have to be school related. Once you have created your list of words, you will follow the instructions at the link above. Read carefully and think before asking questions. If you are using your effective effort strategies, you should be able to do this on your own. I will give you a couple of hints below:

Hint #1: Be sure to name your spreadsheet when you create it.
Hint #2: What is a URL and where do you find it?
**You actually can skip this step; as there is a gadget for wordsearches now.**
Hint #3: You may need to enlarge or expand your wordsearch by
grabbing a corner and dragging so you can see it all.

While you are working on your wordsearch I will be asking you collaborate on a class survey. When asked, you will stop working on your wordsearch, go to the shared form, and create a question for the survey. We will determine the topic of the survey at the beginning of class and have a quick demonstration of how to create questions using our Google forms. You will be completing another ILT classes’ survey in the next couple of weeks. We will then take a look at transforming the responses in to a chart or graph which could be imported in to a presentation. There are so many possibilities with our Google Docs!!!!

Good Communication and Follow Up

I have been reviewing the expectations for ILT with students this week in regard to missed classes. I must say, it seems to have paid off!!! I have received 8 emails in the past two days from students who have made up missed work. I realized one piece of the equation I neglected to share with students. We discussed where to email me (white_kim@barnstable.k12.ma.us), what to include in the subject line (re: make up work ILT#), and when (within 1 week of the missed class); however I did not mention checking your email accounts for confirmation. Once you have completed the make up work and sent me an email, it is a good idea to monitor you email accounts for a reply from me. I try my best to send a reply to students within a 48 hour period. So, if you haven’t heard back from me saying “I received your email and have given you credit for the missed class”, you should double check with me. There could have been a mistake in the address you sent it to or some other malfunction. It is technology after all!! Good communication is so important. So “thanks” to those of you who are using your “Effective Effort Strategies” and putting in that “time” to be successful. Keep up the great work and have a super long weekend!
Happy Easter to those of you who celebrate!!

http://www.christmas-graphics-plus.com/free/animated-easter-bunny.html

Time to Share

This week students will be sharing the presentations they have created. It has been a bit of a bumpy road for those students using "Prezi." For some reason, which we have not yet been able to troubleshoot, Prezi is not "playing nice" with Firefox. Students are having their Prezi's crash before they can be saved. We are also getting a message that "Adobe shockplayer plug in has crashed." Everything seems up to date in regard to add-on's and plug-in's. We have asked Mrs. Knittle to put it out to her strong on line community to see if others have been having similar problems. With all that taken in to account, many students will be prepared to share their presentations during our second class of the week. I can't wait to see this updated assignment.
On another note, about a month ago I shared a video created by our own B2B TV station. This broadcast featured BIS students and our superintendent. Students have asked how to see this video at home as many are featured and would like to share it with their families. You will need to check out the video at Vimeo where it is stored. This is the link: Superintendent Visits BIS.