MAKING DIGITAL MOVIES WITH CLAY FIGURINES They say
Polly Masterson, MACUL Grant Recipient
a picture is worth a thousand words. Little did I know that taking pictures
was worth so much more. In an effort to engage students in active learning and writing for a purpose, I teamed up with two other teachers for an integrated unit that the students really enjoyed.
This was a collaborative project between the core 5th grade teachers and myself, the Technology Enrichment Teacher. Students read The Sign of the Beaver by Elizabeth George Speare, in their Language Art class. The teaming teacher for science and social studies had students create clay figurines, housing, clothing, food, means of transportation, etc. as the students learned about them from the story and as they studied the early American Indians in class.
The students worked on activities and lessons with their core teachers as they continued to read this novel. After the novel was completed, my two-week Technology Enrichment rotation began with these students. In my classroom, students divided into collaborative groups where they were assigned a set of chapters from the story. The students worked in groups to type a short summary of the events that happened in narrative form.
Our next step was to use the digital cameras, (12 Olympus FE-30 cameras purchased with the grant money) and take photos of the scenes that they wrote about in their summaries. Each group was told to take 8-12
photos depending on their events taking place. This required much more time than planned, since there was only one of each character created and the main character was needed in most of the photos.
I had underestimated the amount of teaching that was needed prior to taking and using digital photos. I backed up a few steps and started with basic camera safety and handling. I taught them how to review an image, change the settings, use a flash, etc. It extended into how to download to the computer and erase the disk when completed.
As the groups started taking the photos I noticed a lot of discussions taking place. At first I wanted to quiet the groups, but as I listened I heard them talking about the photos they were taking. Students from other groups disagreed with which characters needed to be in each scene. They debated about when certain events happened and at what locations some events took place. We carried these discussions into the classroom and the next day they requested some time to do some rewriting of their summaries. This was totally unexpected and not part of our scheduled time, but by far the most important learning lesson I could have hoped for. By the end of the first week we finally had our photos for our movie.
Students sat with their groups and created a new iMovie project for their chapters. We imported our photos and spent the next two days learning how to manipulate the timelines, Ken Burns Effect and resizing. It was time to record our narration of the summaries they had written. Groups decided if they wanted one narrator or if they all wanted to share the experience and then they recorded their voices directly into the program. The final days were spent on the finishing touches and finally exporting their project into a QuickTime file so I could combine all the chapters to create one movie.
Two weeks have gone by and all we have to show for it is a final movie about 9 minutes long. Once I played their movie for them on the big screen to watch, I realized that every second we spent on it was worth it. The students were so proud of their work and very excited to see what the other groups had come up with. They asked me to play it again, and again, and again. Before the students left the class rotation, I had them all take the Book Adventure quiz (
www.bookadventure.com) on the book they read. The class average was a 95%.
Would I do it again? Absolutely! I would make a few minor changes. I can’t take the credit for their quiz scores, but I know they learned a lot of technology skills during those two weeks and never once complained about having to do any of it. They had an opportunity to see something that they wrote, photographed, and edited come to life and be shared with others. There was a purpose for their writing and they could see that!
Polly Masterson teaches Language Arts & Technology Enrichment (grades 3-8) at Richardson Elementary School in Oscoda, Michigan. Polly maintains a website with links to her favorite sites for students and teachers to use in all subject matter.
www.pmasterson.org.
30 | Conference 2011 | MACULJOURNAL
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