Tellagami PSA's

The end of school is drawing near, but we still have so much to do!!  This week you will be finishing up your first attempts at a digital story.  This digital story "short" or PSA will be created using your iPads and the Tellagami app.  You will start by completing a storyboard.  I hope you enjoy this process.  I can't wait to see your creativity and innovation!
For the remainder of this school year you will have the choice of finishing up your GHP or creating a new digital story.  I will give you a checklist for either project to keep you on task.
      Digital Story Checklist
      Digital Story Storyboard Template (see Mrs. White)
      Genius Hour Project Checklist
Have a super week!!
 ~Mrs. White :0)

One More PARCC Week and We're Done......Hooray!

I don't know who will be more excited when PARCC testing has come to an end; students or teachers?!!!  I can't wait to have our regular schedule back....oh wait!  Memorial Day Weekend is next week which means only a four day week.  UGH!!!  Are we ever going to have a "normal" school week?!!  Oh well, let's make the best of it and do some cool stuff in the time we do have.
This week you will be showing me what you know in regard to commenting.  You will be taking you Commenting Assessment (most of you) during our second tech class this week.  I hope you have been reviewing your study guide and the BPS Guidelines.  If you have been, this assessment will be a piece of cake!
Well, what about our first class this week?  What will we be doing you ask?  We will be taking a look at digital storytelling.  When I looked at the responses from the Genius Hour Project Survey I was surprised to see so many students sharing the desire to continue working on their projects.  I also respect the number of you, almost equal, who do not want to continue with this project.  Our crazy schedule and loss of so many days derailed many of you and caused a loss of enthusiasm.  So I have come up with a compromise of sorts.  I will be introducing the concept of digital storytelling to all students.  After our introductory lessons you will have the choice of creating your own digital story or continuing with your Genius Hour Project.  I would like all of my students to be familiar with this form of media, but respect those of you who want to complete what you've started.
So here we go....digital storytelling.  I have an example of a digital story for you to watch.  I'm afraid my projector bulb has still not been replaced, so you will have to watch this individually at your workstations.  Please check out this digital story.  We will talk about the elements or parts of this story once you have finished. Please check out a post from my archive in which I talk about this digital story: Caught in the Crowd.

image link

Putting It All Together

The time is finally here.  You are going to bring all of the “ingredients” in to Windows Movie Maker (WMM) or another tool of your choice.  Once you have them all in your tool, you will begin the editing process of your digital story.  Remember to use the Atomic Learning tutorial to help you answer any questions your may have throughout this process.  Take your time and experiment to find exactly the “look” you want for your story.  Use your checklist as you are working on this project to be sure you have all of the elements you need.   Good luck and have fun!! 
**Remember you also need to put some time in to your blog.  You will need to turn in your student evaluation at the end of class 2 this week.**
 Please take a minute to take this Student Survey.  Be sure to read the directions and submit the form.  Thanks.

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