Kristen+Caldwell's+Cool+Tools+Review+and+Application+Plan


 * Cool Tools Review and Unit Plan **  

**Primary Access **  

This is a great tool for students in grades 3 and up. I think it makes digital storytelling with still photos highly accessible to students. It provides options to support individual interests and allows certain elements to be customized, such as direction and speed of tracking across the photograph, timing of photos, and timing of narration. I especially appreciated the ease with which teachers can use Primary Access to search for relevant photos and place them in folders for easy access for students. Then all they need to do is peruse the photos, all of which relate to their specific project. They can choose photos that most strongly speak to them and underscore the points made in their narration.

Another feature of the program that is powerful is the script tool, which ensures that students will put their thoughts into writing. Rather than writing for writing’s sake, students are writing their ideas in order to create a finished multimedia product that represents their thoughts in audio narration, written text, and strong visual images.

Meghan Manfra did a great job presenting this cool tool. She began by addressing which grade levels and content areas would be best suited for using this tool and then shared a model of a completed product. With her guidance, we worked together to complete the initial steps of logging in, finding certain tools, and selecting our initial photos. She then offered assistance in a guided discovery session that allowed us to create our own primary access project. I appreciated the handout she offered that addresses some of the basic steps for navigating through the primary access program.

While I do not foresee being able to use this cool tool with my own first graders, I am eager to share it with the third to fifth grade teachers in my school. Hopefully, I will also be able to use it with older students myself when I am a reading specialist.

**Digital Video as Process and Product **  

In this session, Dr. Carol Pope shared ideas for using digital video as a tool for documenting the learning process as much as it is for creating a finished product. It was clear that digital video appeals to students – they enjoy seeing themselves in the video and the process of making creative decisions about visuals and sound give them the opportunity to express their individuality and enthusiasm. One of the projects she shared that was especially successful was one in which college students were collaborating with middle schoolers to create digital videos of poems the students had written.

This session was meaningful because it emphasized that the process of creating digital video is highly engaging and powerful for students. It gives greater purpose to learning content knowledge because students need this knowledge to create their video. Dr. Pope also stressed that focusing on the process allows us (teachers and students) to let go of the need to create a perfect finished product. Regardless of whether the video and audio are high quality and the editing attends to every detail, students are drawn to the experience of creating.

Personally, I did not take a great deal of new information from this session because I already have a solid background (for a teacher) in using digital video. However I did enjoy seeing the collaborative projects – I would love to have my first graders work with third or fourth graders to create collaborative digital video products. **Fizz (get.onfizz.org) with Lodge McCammon **  

I had some background knowledge about the get.onfiz.org site through my experiences in ECI 546 with Dr. Spires last fall. When I attended this session, I was interested in hearing some of the information again to get a clearer sense of what elements of Lodge’s projects with digital video could be incorporated into my classroom.

In the session, Lodge focused on one-take videos and how much they’ve become widely accepted as a means of communicating content without need for any editing. It was especially inspiring to hear how much content students learned by creating their own music videos using Lodge’s lyrics and music. Luke explained that using the music video tools generated the highest levels of engagement and connection for his lowest achieving students, and when he assessed their comprehension, their test scores were at the very top of the class. It is clear that digital video is a highly effective for engaging students and helping to make content meaningful and relevant. **VoiceThread **  

This tool was the one I used for my instructional plan this week. My partner, Mary, and I had already gained some experience using VoiceThread through ECI 546 with Dr. Spires and Lisa Hervey last fall. Our background knowledge, coupled with attending the cool tools session as a refresher, gave us a strong foundational understanding of how to use the application and how to integrate it into our classrooms.

One of the strengths of this tool is that all aspects of it are online, with no need to save the finished product and upload it to a server. This makes it easily accessible from home and school and enables anyone to view students’ products if they are made public. There are many levels of privacy, which allows teachers the options of keeping students’ work private, sharing voicethreads with a select few, making them public but not searchable (i.e., a unique url address is needed to view the voicethread), or making them completely public.

The one downside to this tool is that students need their own email addresses if you want each student to have an account. Mary and I found a loophole for this issue. We discovered that we could create separate identities for students under our own account, so that all our students can use voicethread and we do not need to worry about creating fictional email addresses and passwords for each student. (This makes using the application much easier with K-3 students, our target audience.)

**Unit Plan for Using Digital Video ** <span style="font-family: Tahoma, Geneva, sans-serif;">

Grade Level: First Grade

Content Area: Social Studies, Writing

Time Frame: First Quarter, 1.5 weeks

North Carolina Standard Course of Study Objectives: **<span style="font-family: Tahoma, Geneva, sans-serif;">Grade 1 Social Studies 1.03 ** <span style="font-family: Tahoma, Geneva, sans-serif;"> Compare and contrast similarities and differences among individuals and families. **<span style="font-family: Tahoma, Geneva, sans-serif;">Grade 1 Social Studies 1.04 ** <span style="font-family: Tahoma, Geneva, sans-serif;"> Explore the benefits of diversity in the United States. **<span style="font-family: Tahoma, Geneva, sans-serif;">Grade 1 Technology ** <span style="font-family: Tahoma, Geneva, sans-serif;"> **<span style="font-family: Tahoma, Geneva, sans-serif;">1.08 ** <span style="font-family: Tahoma, Geneva, sans-serif;"> Recognize the characteristics of multimedia (e.g., text, audio, images, video). **<span style="font-family: Tahoma, Geneva, sans-serif;">Grade 1 Technology ** <span style="font-family: Tahoma, Geneva, sans-serif;"> **<span style="font-family: Tahoma, Geneva, sans-serif;">2.07 ** <span style="font-family: Tahoma, Geneva, sans-serif;"> Use multimedia software to illustrate words/phrases/concepts. **<span style="font-family: Tahoma, Geneva, sans-serif;">Grade 1 Language Arts 4.02 ** <span style="font-family: Tahoma, Geneva, sans-serif;"> Use words that describe, name characters and settings (who, where), and tell action and events (what happened, what did ___ do) in simple texts. **<span style="font-family: Tahoma, Geneva, sans-serif;">Grade 1 Language Arts 4.03 ** <span style="font-family: Tahoma, Geneva, sans-serif;"> Use specific words to name and tell action in oral and written language (e.g., using words such as frog and toad when discussing a nonfiction text). **<span style="font-family: Tahoma, Geneva, sans-serif;">Unit Overview: ** <span style="font-size: 14pt; font-family: Tahoma, Geneva, sans-serif;"> <span style="font-family: Tahoma, Geneva, sans-serif;"> Students will create their own one-take videos representing unique characteristics about themselves and their families. To prepare for these videos, students will create pictures of themselves and their families and will write scripts containing the information they wish to share in their videos. After all students have created their videos, the class will view all student videos and will reflect on similarities and differences between individuals and their families. Students will discuss how individual differences create a diverse community and how diversity is beneficial. Following a class discussion on these ideas, students will record their reflections in writing.

**<span style="font-family: Tahoma, Geneva, sans-serif;">Day 1 (60 minutes) ** <span style="font-size: 13pt; font-family: Tahoma, Geneva, sans-serif;"> <span style="font-family: Tahoma, Geneva, sans-serif;"> Teacher will introduce unit, explain objectives/goals, and introduce new vocabulary. Teacher will share examples of finished video products. Students will create a picture that depicts themselves and their families. Students will write a script with three or more sentences that describes themselves and their families. **<span style="font-family: Tahoma, Geneva, sans-serif;">Days 2 - 3 (60 minutes per day) ** <span style="font-size: 13pt; font-family: Tahoma, Geneva, sans-serif;"> <span style="font-family: Tahoma, Geneva, sans-serif;"> Students will finish their writing product from Day 1. Students will review video products from previous day. Students will identify what elements are part of an exemplary video and which elements detract from a strong video. **<span style="font-family: Tahoma, Geneva, sans-serif;">Days 4-5 (60 minutes per day) ** <span style="font-size: 13pt; font-family: Tahoma, Geneva, sans-serif;"> <span style="font-family: Tahoma, Geneva, sans-serif;"> Teacher will model how to use the digital camera. With assistance from the teacher, students will create a one-take video in which they share their picture and read from their script about themselves and their families. **<span style="font-family: Tahoma, Geneva, sans-serif;">Day 6 (90 minutes) ** <span style="font-size: 13pt; font-family: Tahoma, Geneva, sans-serif;"> <span style="font-family: Tahoma, Geneva, sans-serif;"> Students will view peers’ videos and compare and contrast similarities and differences between themselves and their peers. Students will explore how similarities and differences between themselves and their peers creates a diverse community and how this is beneficial. Students will write at least three sentences explaining how individuals in the class are different and how this is beneficial.