My Journey into the World of Elementary Tech » Language Arts

Digital Stories

Nedra Isenberg — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 03:07:28 +0000

In December our first grade teachers did an Eric Carle author study and as a result each class rewrote one of his stories. The art teacher helped out by drawing a simple outline of each character or object in the story. The children then filled the outline with scraps of paper they had fingerprinted with bright colors. When I saw the pages I fell in love with the project and volunteered to put them into a digital format. Well now over a month later I have finally completed the process. It seemed like such a simple process but it was more time consuming than I anticipated.

At first I was going to do all three projects using Smilebox, a free download and if you tell them you’re a teacher you get the best version for free. But then I decided it would be better if I just did one story in Smilebox and then one in Photostory3, another free download and the third in Windows Movie Maker. I figured this would be a good opportunity for me to compare the three different processes and see the pros and cons of each. You can see all three stories on my wiki.

So, here’s what I’m thinking about each program at the moment:

Smilebox

Pros

Colorful
Choice of layouts-scrapbook or slideshow, I selected a slideshow
Lots of music selections
Easy to embed into a webpage.

Cons

Limited #of slides for a slideshow
Can’t add narrations
Even though I downloaded Smilebox at school I couldn’t save it from home and take it to school to work on it.

Photo Story3

Pros

Easy to record voices
Picture and voice are kept together as one unit so easy to move around on timeline
Music can be added

Cons

Can’t edit recording but it is easy to delete and redo
My file became corrupt and I couldn’t edit it. When I searched for a solution I didn’t find one but I found others have had this problem.
No reminders to add a title slide or credits
I put in a page turning transition but it does not show up in the finished product.

Movie Maker

Pros

Recordings can be done in Audacity so that the mistakes and long pauses or ummmms can be deleted.

Cons

Voice and picture were two different files and moving them around on the time line was not easy.

A little tricky to get recordings and pictures timed correctly.

At the end of the project I figured out I didn’t have to use Audacity and could narrate right on the timeline. I tried this but the voice went right on top of the next voice because I hadn’t put more space in the spot.

I’m not sure if music can be added or not.

I put in a star transition between the slide but it does not show up in the finished show.

Final Thoughts

If a teacher came to me and wanted to do a digital story I would recommend Photo Story 3 if the children were going to be doing the project. If the teacher is putting it together and they didn’t need narration I would also recommend Smilebox. I’m working on a Snow in 6 Words project thanks to Martha Thornburgh for the idea with my third graders. We’re building it in PowerPoint and when we’re done I may have them move their slides to Photo Story 3 and then post them on the wiki.

Your Thoughts

Please let me know your thoughts on these programs. What do you see as the pros and cons? Share tips and tricks that will make this easier or recommend other products to try out.

Thanks!

Scary Spuds

Nedra Isenberg — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 19:12:14 +0000

I have just finished my first truly collaborative online project. I have participated in other “collaborative” projects over the years but they could be compared to a preschool classroom where everyone is doing their own thing. You might look over your shoulder to see what someone else is doing but you aren’t interacting with each other. Scary Spuds is different and was set up by Amber Coggin. (I think she is someone to keep your eye on. She’s young and full of ideas and before this project was finished she was already started on another one that is bigger and better!) Since this was our first attempt at doing a project like this we kept it small, just the two of us. We matched up our 2^nd grade classes, I used two 3rd grades as well, to work on descriptive writing. It was fun and easy. I think the hardest part was just trying to explain how it all worked to seven year olds. It wasn’t until the end that the light bulb went on and they could see how it all turned out.

I learned a few things from this project. One is that next year I would start a little earlier so I’m not trying to put all the finished pictures online at the same time I’m trying to get grades done. That was not a great combination. Next time I would also approach the classroom teachers to see if they are interested in helping with the writing. That would help speed up the project and not take up a lot of classroom time. At the end we had the classes ask each other some questions about their communities. My kids were quite surprised to learn that most kids in Alabama had never seen snow! They also felt very sorry for them. Next time I would ask these questions at the beginning of the project to build some community.

During our last class I had the students reflect on the project. They liked making the Scary Spuds the most. The thing they found the most frustrating was that there wasn’t enough detail in the writing of their partner class to make the spud look just right. One group read the wrong description when they recreated a spud. One of the students felt badly about that. I tried to use that as one of those teachable moments about learning from mistakes.

All in all I felt it was a very successful project and am looking forward to the next one.

Scholastic Book Search Widget

Nedra Isenberg — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 01:42:31 +0000

I found out about this handy widget by Scholastic from a participant in Susan Silverman’s Online Autumn project. This widget allows you to search for a book by title, author, or keyword. Once you enter the information you are taken to the Scholastic site. Now you can see the reading level. The teacher can select how it is leveled; DRA, Lexile Format, Grade Equivalent, or Guided Reading. From the same page teachers can also find similar books at the same reading level. I think this will be a handy tool for elementary classroom teachers as well as parents.