Project 3

Project Presentation


Project Write-Up

At the beginning of April, I undertook a digital storytelling project with my students. I decided that my middle school technology class of 30 students would go through the process we originally outlined in our first group projects, and that I would be mindful of important aspects of differentiation into this project.

My class website, as always, was a vital part of this project for the students.  I kept the project calendar, rubrics, process steps, video exemplars, tutorials and anything else related to the project that the students would need on this page.  It was broken down by a table of contents so that students could easily jump to the sections they were looking for.  This allowed both students and parents access to the whole project any time. Students could access the site at home or if they missed class, could download needed documents, watch exemplar and tutorial videos, see due dates, and the rubrics and checklists they would need.

In order to begin this project, I laid out an understanding by design template (see below), so that I could identify what standards I wanted them to meet, and clearly identify their performance task, as well as what they should know and be able to do, as well as what I would have to do to get them there. 

I knew I wanted them to write stories, and be sure they used all of the important story elements like characterizations, setting, plot, mood, conflict, climax, and resolution, yet I was unsure how solid they were on story elements to begin with. So I figured that would be a good place to start.

Before we began the project, I surveyed my students to see what knowledge and comfort levels they had with story elements, and various elements of digital storytelling.  The results told me first and foremost that many of my students are a little over confident!  However, for most of the questions, at least half or more of the class was honest in their self-appraisal in these areas. 

Together we read several stories of different genres (and reading levels), and then watched 4 examples of digital stories created by students (I kept these posted on the class website as exemplars for students to refer to throughout the project).  Throughout this process, we worked on defining and identifying story elements.  Students worked in self-selected partner groups, and could choose any of the digital or written stories we’d gone through in class to identify the story elements (characters, setting, plot, mood/tone, conflict, climax, resolution).

I wanted to be sure there was plenty of choice for students as part of this project, as I knew they would be more engaged if they could have more ownership over the process. I used a fiction-writing lesson that I used to use when I taught junior high English (see below), and we began there, brainstorming ideas, identifying our settings and characters, planning out our conflicts and resolutions.  For this particular assignment, students brainstormed a list of their favorite people, their favorite animals, and the habits or actions of others that annoyed them the most.  The challenge was for them to match something that really annoyed them personally, to a character they really liked, and then brainstorm what kinds of challenges or problems that could present as a basis for their story.  This left them lots of choice in terms of writing about things that were meaningful to them, things they knew a lot about, and things they felt strongly about, as well as plenty of room for imagination.

Then the writing began.  This part of the process took much longer than I anticipated – I blame that on the years that have passed since I actually taught junior high English – I should have known better! 

During this course, students have learned many technology skills in isolation.  They have learned to use Google Docs in Google Drive, how to use the Pages app on their iPad, and how to email from that app.  They have also learned to use the folders in their Google Drive, and how to use their Gmail as a “go between” for transporting their documents between devices.  Throughout the writing, revising and editing process, they were allowed to use any of these ways of sharing that they preferred for peer editing.  The class was fairly evenly split here – some liked the old-fashioned method of printing their stories and taking the editing pen to them.  Some would email their stories to each other, and some shared them on Google Docs with several friends, and left marks and comments within the document for each other.

After much drafting, proofreading, and revising, we were finally ready to begin story tables.  This part of the process was entirely new to the students, and took a solid week of intensive work, which included a lot of modeling on my part.  I put story table templates on our course website in Word and Pages, so that if students were working on different computers or at home, they would be able to access the template.  I also emailed a copy of just the Pages template to all of the students (the majority have iPads), so they would have no problems using it on their iPads. .  I also showed the students some storyboard software called “Storyboard That” that they could use as an alternative.  I had about 3 students begin playing around with it, but ultimately, the story tables were quicker to work with.

The story table process also involved small group meetings, and individual meetings with students.  In the end, most of the students had a lot of help from me, although most of the 8^th grade students were able to get through the process of breaking down their stories with very little help from me. The end of the story proofreading and the beginning of the Story Table work blended together, as students were definitely working at their own pace by this point. The students collected photos for their story tables, and wrote descriptions of their scene into the story tables, and these were exchanged and edited between the students and me over the course of the week.  During this portion, more of the skills they had learned in isolation earlier in the year came into play in a more applied way.  Some students set up folders in Google Drive, and collected their background images there. Some students dragged their images directly into their story table for a more visual effect as they were working on the table.

They began the even more technical stage of the project; using green screen effects, using iMovie, doing voice recordings, and putting in music and sound effects. 

I posted a tutorial video on our class website instructing students how to take pictures with green screen, and I also modeled the process for them several times using my green screen area and my SmartBoard to project the process in iMovie. The 8^th graders were already familiar with green screen, and so were a great help to the other students as tutors throughout this part of the project.  Some students caught on right away, and a handful of others, as well as a few students who were absent watched the tutorial video I had posted – some several times.

For their stories, they were to set their scenes using backgrounds chosen from the internet, with them in each picture.  I insisted they be in each picture, since they were the main characters in their stories. I wanted them to think of showing the action from the point of view of their character.  This part of the process allowed the students to get even more creative with their stories as they each looked for their own background images, and posed and shot their green screen photos.  Several students worked in small groups to help each other with the green screen shots. I left the classroom management aspect of this pretty open, and their behavior was very much task-driven as they wanted to get certain shots they had in mind, and were also eager to share their ideas about what they were doing with classmates.

Selecting music was difficult, and although I initially offered up a list of links for free music, this turned out to be more choice than was necessary - it was too much to handle, became a distraction and caused us to lose focus for a bit.  I decided it would be best to offer very limited choice for this, and most of the students worked with the canned sound effects already in iMovie.  I had a few 8th graders who grasped the soundtrack concept, were able to focus and pull their music fairly quickly.  

Finally – the projects were mostly complete!  Students began posting their videos to YouTube, and embedding them into posts on their own student blogs.

This is definitely one of the more complex projects I have undertaken with a class this size, but in terms of planning and management, I felt it went really well.  Allowing a lot of choice in terms of subject, voice, working at their own pace, choosing work flow tools and methods, getting feedback from others, and the overall creativity they were able to put in to the writing, pictures and sound turned out to be a really positive experience.  Students were engaged in the process throughout, and this alone eliminated a lot of the hassles that a more lock-step plan can create. 

At the end of the project, I gave the same survey to my students as I did at the beginning.  However, this time, an overwhelming majority answered in the positive to their levels of knowledge and comfort with aspects of story elements and digital story telling (the comparisons are shown and explained in my video). Based on much of my discussion and observations of the students throughout the project, I am fairly confident that their second attempt at the survey is a much more honest one than the first.  

I also used the project rubric (the same one that had been posted on the website for the students all along) to assess their videos.  With some of the students (mostly 8^th graders), we watched the video and went through the rubric together, which I think was a more helpful assessment.  However, this class consists of 30 students, so I did not have time to do this with each of them.  In my presentation video, you can see an example of how I applied this rubric to a student project.

In thinking about what I would do differently next time, of course there are always some things I would tweak (note – I am already doing this project again with my Spanish class).  Just like any kind of creative format, the first time is always the most difficult.  Part of this project simply involved giving my students a clear idea of what a digital story actually is.  From now on, we are free to focus more in specific aspects of the process, such as setting up scenes, symbolic imagery, choosing music and sound, voice modulation, and creating stories in different genres and for different purposes and audiences.  Much in the way I have done with writing over the years, I would also modify my rubric to reflect this level of focus within the project. In this project, most of those aspects were there, but on a very introductory level. For timeline and planning purposes, I’ll be sure to allot enough time up front for the students to really flesh out their ideas in written story form first.  This process takes a long time anyway, and if they don’t nail that, the rest of the process suffers.  As I continue to work through digital stories with my students, it will be nice to build up a collection of them to show as exemplars to my classes.

The finishing touches are being put on these videos this week, and as they are finished they will be posted to the student blogs.  To see the stories, click here to go tomy teacher page. Scroll down looking at the right side of the page, and you’ll see grade levels, and first names below each of them.  These are links to individual student blogs.  The digital stories belong to the 6^th, 7^th, and 8^th graders, so clicking on those names will get you to their latest “Digital Story” post. 

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Week 12

Essential Question: How will I demonstrate impact on student learning as a result of my differentiated lesson?

In order to demonstrate impact on student learning, I decided to give my students a pre and post project survey.  Since my digital storytelling project includes multiple components, quizzes and tests would not be a very easy way to assess impact.  The survey I created for them asks questions about how familiar they are with various aspects of digital storytelling, such as elements of a story, (characters, setting, POV, conflict, rising action, etc.).  I also asked them questions about how to create story tables, creating or choosing images, music and narration to create mood and tone, and the use of iMovie to put everything together.  In the questions I asked the choices I gave them were worded as, "Yes, I can explain how to do this", or "No I don't know how to do this". I wanted to word them this way rather than just allowing them to say yes or know.  I've found that when you ask students if they know something well enough to explain it, they are often more honest with themselves (and me) about their comfort level with that knowledge.  The questions I asked are about specific aspects of the project that are the focus of teaching and learning.

Here is a snapshot of what my part of my survey looks like (I used Survey Monkey and posted the link on our class site). 

Here are the results of my pre-project survey: 

My own personal take on these survey results is that some of the "yes" answers were just the result of a little over-confidence.  I've had these students in class all year, and have had some in previous years as well.  There are a handful of 8th graders in the class who might be able to do some of these things with confidence, but I very much doubt it for the rest of the class.

For example, on the question about "mood" (#4) fully 70% of my students said they could identify and explain mood in a story.  However, today in class we specifically focused on mood in their drafts through a series of exercises, and initially, the majority of them were unable to explain to me what the mood of their story was, or if they had planned dialogue, descriptions, and action verbs to highlight this mood. That question was the only one in which the majority of the students answered over-confidently.  However, because it was so skewed, it confirmed for me that even though all of the other questions show the majority of the students are unclear about most of these ideas, those answering in the affirmative are probably somewhat over-confident about their abilities.

Also, I've updated my final project rubric for students - here is the link to the project on our class site - on the table of contents just click final project rubric.

Week 11

Essential Question: What technology will I use to allow students to demonstrate they have met the standards targeted by my rubric? What are the classroom management considerations that I must address?

First I'll start by elaborating on the project I posted for week 10.  The rubric I posted will be for the final performance task - the digital story.  However, along the way, there will be other rubrics posted as well (for the written story and the story board) which incorporate the writing standard I chose.  The first part of this project involves writing a fictional story.  My students began that process last week.   They will use the writing rubric and calendar I posted on our class site.  

The technology students will be using will include:
1. Their drafts in GoogleDocs for peer and teacher editing
2. The use of the class site to check on the project directions, due dates, links, rubrics, help videos, and anything else I post there to be used as a resource.
3. Storyboard That software
4. Their blogs on Blogger
5.  Keynote
6. SlideShare
7. Various music download sites for free open source music, or GarageBand for original compositions

Classroom management considerations are many, as this is a large class (30 students).  Levels vary quite a bit in this 6th through 8th grade group.  This is a technology class, so these students are all familiar now with blogs and several slide show tools, such as Keynote, PowerPoint, VoiceThread, and Google Presentations.  They are also familiar with searching and citing images. I am working with the middle school English teacher as well, and although we are doing most of the writing in my class right now, she is also taking time to work with these classes (she has each grade separately) on revising their drafts and creating their story boards, which will speed things up in my class.

I post the project on my class site so the students will always have access to it.  I also post any links to specific tools they will need so they can always find them.  As I see the need, I will add any "how to" videos, but as yet I have not done this. The students all have their own blogs, so they have a ready-made place to post their work.  They have been given choices from the beginning of the project -including choosing their own topic.  They will have a fair amount of leeway in putting together their digital story as well, in terms of the pictures and music they choose, and how they will interpret their story visually. The rubrics and checklists provide structural guidelines as they go through this process.

As we finish the writing portion, I will be showing a variety of digital stories in class and having the students analyze them using the story arcs. Some of these will be posted on the class site for students to reference.

Students are always working with their own material throughout the project, and making decisions about how they will use that within the guidelines of the project. There are several opportunities for students to work with others (self-selected groups), such as when we do peer editing, work with the storyboard software, begin planning and taking pictures, and when we work with the presentation software.  I have found that these spontaneous collaborations are great support for the students as they add more ideas and solve problems throughout projects.

Since students are often working at their own pace, and on their own personal projects, I have a lot of latitude in my opportunities to work with individual students during class time.  I have found that having students working this way is actually a far better use of my time, as I can address individual needs more thoroughly, and students who are in the flow of their work can push on uninterrupted. Often students will seek answers to small problems from classmates. 

A note about my rubrics - when I am posting rubrics for students, I dislike posting "proficiency levels" with points attached.  I feel the focus then becomes too much on the grade, and not on the content.  The multi-levels of performance add confusion (especially for middle school students) and also convey the idea that it's ok if they don't meet the highest standard, and that there are parts of the project where "good enough" will still get them a passing grade.  I only post a 1 column rubric, so that students can simply focus on what the performance expectations are, and use it as a check list to refer to.

Week 10

Essential Question: How can I differentiate through student product in my classroom?

In thinking about doing this as a unit of study with a class, I've narrowed my options a bit for the remainder of the year.  I currently only teach 3 classes that can be considered "classes" in the more traditional sense - the rest of my courses are online independent study courses that I administer, monitor and tutor. Students in those courses are working independently and at different paces.  Of the 3 traditional classes, two of them are already committed to projects that will probably be taking up most of the coming month.  That leaves me with one, my junior high beginning technology class.  As it happens, I had planned for these students to be spending a good part of April studying various aspects of video (creation, sharing, publishing, effects, etc.), so I thought this would be a good time to begin to incorporate some of the elements of our digital storytelling project that my group did for project 1.  My students have had some video basics, in that they have been introduced to and used some online slideshow and presentation tools, and have worked a little with video planning and publishing in the form of screencasting, and a digital citizenship video they made early in the year.

From years of experience as a high school and junior high English teacher, I can safely say that what students learn about fiction and story writing does not automatically translate to video.  The goal of this project will be to help junior high students see the explicit link that exists between a good written story and a good multimedia story - they share some key elements that are important to emphasize. Video is an important and powerful medium, and to use it well and for impact, students will need to understand the importance of bringing out these elements, and learn techniques for doing this effectively in a digital medium.

I'll be able to differentiate in many ways throughout the process of this project.  Students will be able to see a variety of good examples, as well as having a choice in what they themselves write about, and how they bring that story to life in the form of a video.

So far, I've determined a rough idea for an EQ, the performance assessment, as well as the standards I want to address.  At the end of this post is the rubric I intend to use for the performance assessment, although other formative assessments will certainly occur along the way - the most important being the rubric addressing their original written piece, and the rubric addressing their story table.  I think the rubrics, along with a series of checklists and due dates, will give students more control over the pieces they will produce.

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EQ

The essential question I am thinking of to guide this project would be something along the lines of – How can we use technology to convey the elements of a well-written story into an effective multimedia story?

Performance Assessment

For a performance assessment students will create a digital story adapted from a story they have written.  The digital story will contain the required elements of written fiction to include point of view, tone, setting, character, plot, conflict, climax, and resolution.

Standards:
The Standards I'd like to focus on for this project are as follows:

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Reading:

Key Ideas and Details:

3. Analyze how particular elements of a story or drama interact (e.g., how setting shapes the characters or plot).

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Writing:

Text Types and Purposes:

3. Use narrative writing to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, relevant descriptive details, and well‐ structured event sequences.
a. Engage and orient the reader by establishing a context and point of view and introducing a narrator and/or characters; organize an event sequence that unfolds naturally and logically.
b. Use narrative techniques, such as dialogue, pacing, and description, to develop experiences, events, and/or characters.
d. Use precise words and phrases, relevant descriptive details, and sensory language to advance the action and convey experiences and events.
e. Provide a conclusion that follows from and reflects on the narrated experiences or events. 

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Technology:

ISTE NETSs

1. Creativity and Innovation

Students demonstrate creative thinking, construct knowledge, and develop innovative products and processes using technology.

a.    Apply existing knowledge to generate new ideas, products, or processes

b.    Create original works as a means of personal or group expression

6. Technology Operations and Concepts

Students demonstrate a sound understanding
of technology concepts, systems, and operations.

a.    Understand and use technology systems

b.    Select and use applications effectively and productively

c.     Troubleshoot systems and applications

d.    Transfer current knowledge to learning of new technologies

Final Performance Assessment Rubric