Creativity, Communication & Citizenship: Brilliant Book Trailers!

One of the awesome parts of my job as LwICT Teacher Leader is that I get to be involved with a wide variety of learning activities.   In May, I was invited to help Mrs. Bowley's grade 7 class with a really awesome book trailer project.  Students viewed a variety of book trailers before selecting a favourite text and planning their own book trailer.  The grade 7s used iMovie to create their trailers and then uploaded them to YouTube.  Next, they made posters with QR codes linked to their videos so they could share their book recommendations by displaying the posters at their school. 

What I Like...

I think the final videos are really well done and I've got a long list of books I want to read after watching them!   There was a lot to like about this project, but some aspects that stood out to me included:

Creativity and Communication 
Bringing together images, text and music to create a compelling book trailer video required creativity and this group of students certainly let their creativity shine!  The project also required effective communication.  Students demonstrated their understanding of a text and conveyed the essence of the book by selecting appropriate elements to include in their video. 

ICT Infusion
This project is a great example of how ICT can support and enhance learning.   Students were able to use technology tools to demonstrate their understanding and knowledge of a text.   I also really like how technology enabled sharing in this example; the QR code posters and video links are great ways for students to share their work with a wider audience.  I think other students and teachers will enjoy watching these!

Digital Citizenship
When I first visited the grade 7 class to help get their book trailers started, we discussed copyright and the need to respect others' work.   We talked about sources for public domain images and royalty-free music.   I know that these thoughtful conversations continued because I heard more about digital citizenship when I returned for my next visit.  I learned that the students did some research on acceptable use and discussed how copyright was applicable to this project.  Students also discussed  sharing their work and considered which platform to use, how much personal information to include and how the videos would be shared.  I was happy to see and hear students thinking about digital citizenship as they worked on this project.   

Watch These!

Okay, you've got my perspective on this cool project - now it is time to watch some samples!   Thanks to Mrs. Bowley's class for sharing the book trailers below!   They are definitely worth watching.  You might even want to compile a list of books to enjoy this summer.   

The Maze Runner 


Divergent


Girl, Stolen


If I Stay


Miss. Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children


Remember Me Always


Where She Went


The Hunger Games


Pitch Black


Everything, Everything

Riding the Wave Conference 2015

 I am attending the Riding the Wave of Change conference in Gimli, Manitoba.  It has been an inspiring and productive day of professional learning. 

We kicked off the conference with an engaging keynote from Richard Byrne,a teacher and notable edublogger at

 http://www.freetech4teachers.com/

Richard shared many good points about teaching students in a hyper-connected world.  This quote that he shared really resonated with me:

http://www.virgin.com/richard-branson/education-can-happen-everywhere

Richard also shared some tools that can be useful in the classroom: 

Run a backchannel or chat room with http://tozzl.com/

Contribute local wildlife photos to  http://www.projectnoah.org

Learn and practice vocabulary with this student-developed tool https://vocabulist.com

I also attended a great presentation by Darren Kuropatwa today.  There were several parts of his presentation that made me think deeply about our connected world and how we can use technology to empower people and make a positive contribution. 

Some important points that resonated with me:

"Citizenship isn’t just what we should NOT DO.  It’s thinking about how we can make a positive contribution." 

 - Darren Kuropatwa

• The internet does not forget.  For example, websites like archive.org document the history of the web.  That means that even websites which are now taken down can be viewed.  
  • The internet can empower you.
  • Choose what you share in the digital world.  What are you good at?  How can you help a problem?  How can you share your passion in a positive way?   How can you make a difference?  
• Here are some examples of people sharing their passions and talents
• Sean Quigley - sharing his musical talents "Little Drummer Boy"
• Maria Aragaon - sharing her musical talents performing Born This Way (Cover) by Lady Gaga
  • Amanda Hockling - a 26 year old self-published author

Darren shared two powerful videos that got me thinking:

Can we autocorrect humanity?    You do have a choice (about how and when you use technology and about what kind of citizen you are in this world).  "You need not delete your social networks or destroy your cell phones, the message is simple, be balanced, be mindful, be present, be here. :)" -Prince Ea

The Kindness Boomerang watch how one act of kindness can lead to another.  This video definitely made me feel happy and it made me appreciate the kind, supportive students, families and community members that I'm fortunate to work with!

I also checked out a variety of cool (and useful!) tools in Lori Emilson's session today:

Olympics Project: Modeling Internet Research & Encouraging Digital Citizenship

My hardworking and curious group of Grade 1s has jumped on board for our Olympics learning project.  After our Skype call launch with the OLCS Kindergartens on Tuesday, our class did some research together to answer two of their inquiry questions.  This allowed me to model some basic research.  Students suggested we use the internet to find information, so I modeled a web search and read aloud information from a relevant website.  After listening, some rereading and discussion, students were ready to answer the two questions.

We wrote our answers together; students explained their understandings and I typed for them.  Next, we discussed the importance of verifying information to ensure that it is correct.  Students identified that "not everything on the internet is true" (I thought it was great that they knew this!), so we checked our information by using another website.  Then, we also discussed the importance of sourcing since we'd used other people's ideas and information to help us learn.  We included the websites we'd used in our post to show that we had learned from those sites.

It was one short activity, but deliberate teaching allowed me to address a number of important topics and skills:

• digital citizenship: giving credit to our sources when we learn from others
• Olympics inquiry: we answered questions that they students had generated for this project
• shared writing: working together, we wrote sentences that clearly communicated our answers
• research skills: verifying information, searching online, using visual and text information