Blog #3 Process

For about 4 days, the students were able to manipulate and experiment with iMovie as the tool for creating the project. This was done in partnerships to encourage sharing and exploring together. Students were only allowed to actually start creating with iMovie once they had a substantial amount of planning and preparation work done. Students in grade 5 still require scaffolding such as writing on the board some focused goals to reach by the end of the period. For example--to try and find out how to add text to a black background, how to make sound fade in and out, etc. Sometimes the students were too distracted with one particular feature they discovered on iMovie, so teacher prompting to try and get those students to discover other neat and interesting features of iMovie was needed.

I felt that 'playing' on iMovie was essential in allowing them a chance to explore and discover the features of iMove for themselves. At the end of these classes, students were asked to come up to the Smartboard and share something they learned that they didn't know before. This enabled the rest of the class to benefit from peers teaching peers. (Note: be careful when hooking up a student laptop to the Smartboard after you, as the teacher, have been using it--sometimes the aspect:ratio is not quite correct. You need to click on the little TV icon in the top R. side of your screen to change it.)

The T.A.I.L (Technology and Information Literacy) Standards that are covered through this project included:

• Recognize bias in digital resources while researching an environmental issue with guidance from the teacher. (TAILs: 1, 2)
• identify, collaborate, and investigate a global issue and generate possible solutions using digital tools and resources. (TAILs: 1, 2, 4, 5)
• locate, access, organize, and apply information about an issue of public concern from multiple points of view (A.c)
• Explore causes, consequences, and possible solutions to persistent, contemporary, and emerging global issues, such as pollution and endangered species. (I.f)
• Recognize and interpret how the "common good" can be strengthened through various forms of citizen action (A.j)
• Suggest ways to monitor science and technology in order to protect the physical environment, individual rights, and the common good. (T.e)
• Identify examples of change and recognize examples of cause/effect relationships (H.g)
• Consider existing uses and propose and evaluate alternative uses of resources and land in home, school community, the region and beyond (G.k)
• Distinguish between needs and wants (E.b)
  
• Examine the relationships and tensions between personal wants and needs and various global concerns, such as use of imported oil, land use, and environmental protection (I.f)
• Identify and describe examples in which science and technology have led to changes in the physical environment (T.b)