Moving forward

Although I have not been able to get in contact with the students parents, my assignment is going well. I am creating a voice thread and video of trabalenguas (tongue twisters in Spanish). It is very fun but confusing. Saying a trabalengua in Spanish is much harder than I thought. With my husband helping with the camera we can not help but laugh. I will work with one of my students from my class and help her make a blogg and voice thread. The student is bilingual so I know this will be a good experience for both of us.

CCMS

I called the Corpus Christi Montessori School and spoke to the director Ms. Abby. She was very nice and positive. I did not have all of my information together and I thought I would get the information from her or some one at the school. However I failed to read my e-mail and when I did things cleared up. I have an appointment to tour the school and meet the teacher and student of the project. I am looking forward to our meeting and getting started on the project.

story board

My movie the life cycle of a frog, can be useful in science, language and even math. My point of view is clear, life cycles are important. My dramatic question is how do life cycles work. The emotional content is that we as humans go through a life cycle. My voice is a way I personalize the story so my viewers will better understand. The information is presented clear,short and to the point. The duration of the movie is approximately 25 seconds. This may seem short but for children the time span is appropriate.

Clip #	Audio	Video	Duration
1 Add number here)	Narration: My movie is about the life cycle of a frog and the different stages a frog goes through before becoming a frog.	The movie starts with the image of frog eggs. It goes on to show the different stages such as embryo, tad pole and tad pole frog stages. It ends with an image of an adult frog.	The movie will last appox.25 seconds
	Sound Effects: Throughout the film my voice will narrate the images with description and useful information.	Effects: (Add notes here describing any effects or special shots that you want to use – i.e. special camera angles, lighting, special effects, type of shot) Include information for titles or text here.
	Transition: I will start to speak at the beginning of each image.	Transition: (The images will move when the viewer presses play.

LIFE CYCLES

How life cycles affect my world? The life cycle of a butterfly.

TEK's 112.2. Science

(7) Science concepts. The student knows that many types of change occur. The student is expected to:

(A) observe, describe, and record changes in size, mass, color, position, quantity, time, temperature, sound, and movement;

Knowledge and skills. 110.2. English Language Arts and Reading

(1) Listening/speaking/purposes. The student listens attentively and engages actively in a variety of oral language experiences. The student is expected to:

(A) determine the purpose(s) for listening such as to get information, to solve problems, and to enjoy and appreciate (K-3);

LEARNING OUTCOME- The learner will identify the life cycles of a butterfly through a SlideCast and will label appropriately.

TIMELINE FOR COMPLETION- 30 TO 45 minutes

VoiceThread

Because voicethread can hold any type of media such as images, documents and videos, the possibilities are endless. For my unit question, How do life cycles affect my world?, I would collect a series of images that represent my topic and add questions and comments for my students to discuss. My unit question can be integrated in different curriculum subjects. For example in geography, I can gather data about different types of life cycles and where they are found. In math we could determine how many life cycles there are in one area chart and compare the information.
As for my future curricular activities I would love to interact with a class from another place. I would like to try to start local maybe a class from another school campus. However my goal would be for my students to interact with other students from around the world. I believe this would set a good foundation for my students with the technology necessary to be successful.

DIGITAL STORYTELLING

Place-based storytelling is one theoretical framework for storytelling. On Brenda Dycke's blog I learned about Jerome Burg, a high school teacher who created a project that combines Google Earth with great works of literature. Google lit trips allows the reader to read great literature and go along for the adventure. Burg believes that place-based storytelling will be successful because it puts the reader in the middle of the story and the reader is more apart of the literature.
Brenda Dycke came up with her own theory and use for digital storytelling. She used Google map to create a map of memories and meaning pertaining to her childhood. She not only had a story about each location she had the locations mapped out for viewers to follow. This would be a wonderful tool to use for geography or math. Students could find the distance from location to location.