Finished...finally

You can check out the final product here...

http://www.sanjuan.edu/webpages/pbaucom/summer.cfm?subpage=81501

I think students will really enjoy creating their own virtual field trip experiences. I'm hoping it will give them an added purpose while on the field trip and encourage them to collaborate with their team members.

I also hope to create some specific tutorials for students on how to use Comic Life in the next week or two.

Lesson plan draft for virtual field trip project

I've spent the morning putting together a lesson plan draft for my project. My next steps are to put together the example writing and virtual trip imovie that I can use to show students before they begin their project. This project will come after they have had a fair amount of experience with Comic Life and iMovie. I'll use the lessons I plan to put together for Wednesday's group. As I put the examples together, I'll figure out what else I might need to include.




Virtual Field Trip Project for Cohort 1 Class

Student Project: Before going on a field trip to Moaning Cavern, students will use Google Earth to discover the location, travel path, and terrain of the area they will be visiting. After going on and documenting the field trip, students will create a virtual field trip to Moaning Cavern to share their experiences and what they learned to be uploaded to the web and shared with the world.

Desired Outcome: Students will improve writing skills, speaking skills, and use creativity to share their knowledge in an engaging format with teacher, peers, and beyond. They will solicit and provide feedback for each other using Moodle or teacher website.

District Impact Point: 4. 77% of 6th graders to achieve writing proficiency (currently 47%)/ (LTT=90%

Prior Experience and needed skills: Students will have prior experience with iMovie, iPhoto, and Comic Life. (Wednesday cohort class lessons will provide initial experience)

CA 6th grade Standards addressed (6th grade):
ELA writing strategies 1.1, 1.2, 1.4, 1.5; ELA Writing applications 2.1 or 2.2; ELA Written and Oral Conventions 1.0 (all); ELA listening and speaking 1.4, 1.5, 1.6, 1.7; Speaking applications 2.1 or 2.2


ISTE standards:
1. Creativity and innovation (a and b)
2. Communication and collaboration (a, b, c, d)
3. Research and Information fluency (a, b, c)
4. Critical thinking, problem solving and decision making (c)
5. Digital citizenship (all)
6. Technology operations and concepts (all)

Rubric in progress (I'm going to try to post this as an image here. We'll see if it works...)

Lesson Plan draft:


1. Introduce students to the project and upcoming field trip to Moaning Caverns. Use teacher created Google Earth file to take students on a trip of the actual travel path they'll be taking. Discuss the terrain and geographic features they observe.


2. Show students an example of a virtual trip to Moaning Caverns (teacher created model) - assessment rubric will be shared with students and discussed using this example project.


3. Discuss process of documenting and taking notes while on the field trip - form teams, digital cameras, notes, ideas, focus/plan


4. Go on field trip.


5. Upon returning, download all pictures and/or video and place onto server or website for easy student access.


6. Students work in teams of 2 or 3 to plan their virtual trip. They will create a storyboard to show the purpose, main ideas, and images to be used in the presentation. This will be approved by teacher before students move on to the next step.


7. Students will continue working in teams to create the text/audio to be used with the images in the presentation. They will type these on the computer and post for teacher/peer feedback when completed.


8. Students will use Comic Life to put together images with text. These will be exported to iPhoto.


9. Students will use iMovie to insert comic life images into their virtual movie trip.


10. Students will practice and record their audio to accompany the comic life images in iMovie. They will also add titles, transitions, and credits.


11. Students will self assess their projects using the rubric and then projects will be uploaded for peer feedback on class webpage (or Moodle)


12. Optional: Students will share their completed work with the staff at Moaning Caverns...

google earth / maps

Spent some time last night trying to figure out how to make virtual trips in Google earth/maps. I figured out a way to create driving directions in Google Maps and then export them as a kml file to open up in Google Earth. I think it will be pretty cool to "fly" to their field trip before they take the school bus. Plus, they can see the terrain of the land from above and get an understanding of where they are going with respect to our location and location within California. My next step is to add images of Moaning Caverns I took previously into the Google Earth interface.

I originally thought students might be able to create these files on their own, but I think I'm going to have students download the file I've created and view it on their own computers in Google Earth and have them note their observations, etc.

update on project

For the Wed class, I'm going to focus on creating a podcast using Comic Life and iMovie, using summary writing as the topic. I will be putting together instructions, rubrics, examples and all that good stuff to guide teachers who are just beginning to implement digital storytelling in the classroom. The project could be generalized to a variety of grade levels and topics. So... that was my original idea for this class, so I now I've decided to do something more specific to the 6th grade at my school.

What I would like to do is have students work in teams to put together a virtual field trip experience for our 6th grade field trip to Moaning Caverns. I'm thinking they'll still use comic life and imovie, but also bring in Google Earth and learn how to put together a kmz file with the trip mapped out and add comments/picture to google earth (not sure if that is what it's called, I need to teach myself how to do this first). We will bring the video camera on our trip to document the experience with stills/video footage and then have students put together their account of their experiences, what they learned, etc.

First Class

I'm not sure exactly what I plan to do for my project. It will probably incorporate writing, imovie, and comic life, perhaps with a social studies or science focus.

More to follow...