an audio mixer and a handheld voice recorder. Our emphasis was on the spoken word and we purchased equipment to capture that. The handheld recorder was recommended by one of our district tech support staff and turned out to be an inspired purchase.
As we began, we felt pretty good. Our plans for the structure of the project, using Moodle as the delivery medium of choice, the peer evaluation of the clips and the increase in skill required to “re-dub” a clip in a foreign language all would certainly demonstrate to us that the project would be a success and worth repeating in the future.
But at the project’s end, the quality of the project videos really was not as high as we hoped, and though the videos could be re-edited to delete audio gaps, there was not class time reshoot to correct the sound on the videos. Kids had fun viewing them, and they did make suggestions as to how to improve their next projects, but the finished product was disappointing to some. Nonetheless, Roxi plans to continue the project, adding and modifying as she goes…Gotta love that attitude. Still, we needed a higher quality feel. Something should be done that was quick and easy.
“Hey Roxi, watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat!” (This trick always works.) “Sum’thin’ up my sleeve-- ANIMOTO!” A “promo” was created using
ANIMOTO.com. (technology tool intro-duction ding!) Mrs. Stanek had many video clips available. (tech ding!) These
clips were combined and set to the music of Ricky Martin singing “La Vida Loca.” It provided Spanish verse at a good tempo which ANIMOTO used to create a fast moving video. The promo was popular enough that our students voted to allow it to be seen publicly at
www.clarenceville.k12.mi.us. (It is available by clicking on words “Building Futures” in the home page header. To go to the Spanish Dishes Moodle Page, click on the Hot Pepper graphic in the home page header.)
Mrs. Stanek’s classroom videotaping in Spanish continues. Her current project, “Not Necessarily the News,” in the Saturday Night Live style, is in production at this writing. Stay tuned.
Counting “dings” or not, Roxi continually “ups her teaching game,” scoring high points for her students at Clarenceville High. As it should be, technology was not the focus but a vehicle for her teaching. And thanks to a MACUL grant, a great teacher is motivating her students to learn while improving tech skills all around. (ding! ding!)
Jim Phipps served as the Director of Technology for Clarenceville Schools in Livonia, Michigan since 1995. He participated in Oakland ISD’s three year longitudinal study for Teaching and Learning with Technology (TLT) as the fourth grade teacher. At that time, the computer of choice was the Apple IIgs, the kids were fearless, and Huron Valley Schools, home of TLT, was changed forever.
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MACULJOURNAL
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