In creating the personal story project, I gained a lot of more knowledge of the capabilities for iMovie and Garageband.  For example, I had never connected the piano into Garageband before.  I learned how to use the piano to create music.  I think this would be really fun to let the students be able to accompany their own projects.  I think it would be great to teach the students how to use the piano, and then let them make their own songs for the reflections contest. 
In iMovie, I learned how to use the green screen.  Although I did not do this in my own project, I can see the students loving to use it.  It adds an element of creativity and excitement to the project.  I think I would like to do this as a project in the future.  Another thing I learned in iMovie, is how to create a picture-in-picture.  This is a great tool to use with students.  For example, if the students are doing an iMovie report of the Revolutionary War, they could have pictures playing of the Revolutionary War, and they could be commentating on the pictures from the corner. 

The whole idea of digital storytelling adds an element of fun into learning.  Teachers need to know that they are not

Steps to Storyboarding
Script:
Setting

• Where does the story take place?
• When does it happen?
• How do the characters interact with the setting?
•     What is felt?
•     Who is there?

Characters

• Personalities
• Who is the hero?
• Is there a villain?
• Motivations
• Goals for the story

Plot

• What is the quest?
• What are the obstacles?
• What is the turning point in the story?
• What is the resolution?

Organization

•  Students can organize these components so that they can create a cohesive story.
• Cohesiveness
• techniques, research, graphic organizers, flow charts, storyboard (describe in pictures)

Making an Outline


Once you have a general idea of the story, create an outline.
Divide the story into 3 parts (Beginning, middle, and end)

iMovie
Today I learned how to do a green screen project on iMovie.  I am really excited to try this effect. 
I learned that it is really important to turn on show advanced preferences in the iMovie section.
First, video the green screen footage. Next, bring in a background picture or video clip changing the time to the green screen time. Then, bring in the green screen video that was recorded previously. 

Flickr
Flickr has many creative commons pictures that people can use. 
It is a great source to save your pictures.  There are free flickr accounts of 2 videos and 300 MB of photos each  calendar month.
Using Flickr, I can find creative commons pictures that are already grouped by certain topics.

What is a story:

• A story is defined as a narrative or tale of real or fictitious events.
• Stories are a nourishment for our hungry souls. Often stories we regard as fiction have elements of trouth dressed up to make them more palatable. 

Why stories
Stories are: entertainment, living memories, and community building

Evolution:
Oral, Drawings-Cave Paintings, Written, Theatre, Photographs,television, digital media


building 21st century skills
Visual and Technical Literacy
Multiple intelligences/learning
Evaluating effective communication

6-elements of a good story
1. Living inside your story.

• The story is told as a personal experience using your own voice
• What you feel

2.Unfold your story
3. Develop Creative Tension
4. Economize the story told
    Get to the point using the shortest path.
    No more than 3-5 minutes
5. Showing Not Telling
6. Developing Craftsmanship
    Sound, graphics, and text

What is my story?
Sharing a story that needs to be told...
    e.g., Why did I become a teacher?  What are the gifts I bring to my work?  What is my best success story?  What do I want my legacy to be told?

Digital Storytelling Sites:
digitales.us
storycenter.org

Elements of creating a Storyboarding
Script/Voice over (What are you going to say)
    6-10seconds per frame
Images
    3-4 seconds per image (too short images go by too fast, too fast audience gets bored)
    5-10 video clip
Subject: think about different angles or different zooms
Titles: Large and limited
    Create a mood by movement, color, type face
Transition:
    Tapes it all together
    Decreases editing time
Add Music and sound effects
    Usually last
    adds emotion
Notes:
    Building bibliography

After watching the Megan Meier video, what do you feel should have been done differently by the law enforcement officials?  What do you feel is an appropriate consequence for the person who cyber-bullied Megan?  Do you feel that this tragedy could have been prevented?  If so, how?


Many states including Missouri (St. Louis) have laws to prevent cyber bullying.  So hearing that law enforcement said that there was nothing that they could do about the bullying issues really irked me.  It made me very frustrated to see that parents tried to get help, and they had no support from authorities. Sometimes, I think that law enforcement believes that their only job is giving out speeding tickets. The authorities should have done more to handle the situation before it was too late.  They could have contacted myspace and had the Josh Evans account looked into more thoroughly. 

I believe that Megan's death was consequence enough for the people who bullied her.  They will have to think about and mourn her death everyday for the rest of their life.  They will continue to know that they were part of the problem that lead to her suicide.

If I was the parent, I would have made her delete him from her account at the beginning of the problems.  I think this was an issue of the teenager not understanding that she could remove herself from the situation. There are many things she could have done such as deleting the account, ceased contact with this person, etc.  Yet, it seems like she felt like she had to stay on and continue to reply to the predators hateful messages. 

I have a few questions about this story. First, why did she add someone to her myspace page that she did not know beforehand?  Second, where were the parents to discuss ground rules for myspace? Finally, why were the parents not monitoring their daughters account? 

Do I think that this tragedy could have been prevented? Yes, but on the other hand, the parents in the report stated that she had had issues of being bullied since she was in the 3rd grade. They had also mentioned that she had problems with depression.  Therefore, I do not think that this cyber bullying was the only cause of suicide.  It was, however, the last straw.  Her hurt, stress, and anger had obviously been building for a very long time.  So, unless she got help and the bullying ceased altogether, I am guessing it would have only been a matter of time

Reflection:

I really liked this week’s activities.  I think the biggest thing I have learned over this past week is that it is important to review with my students. If I made the tree map and nothing else, I probably would have forgotten how to use this program.   But since we were able to use the program one day and then used it again in context the next day, it gave me the opportunity to review the program and move the concept into my more long term memory.  It also gave the opportunity to dig deeper into the program and get more advanced with the program the next day. The same concept applies to my students.  If I only teach a concept once, they are likely to forget it, but if I am able to spiral review the topics, it will help help them remember the concepts for a longer period of time. 

I have also learned that uen.org/cmap is a great website to use for information on GIS/GPS.  It has many website resources that I can use to help me come up with ideas for teaching. 

I thought it was interesting how even though we were all given the same project with very similar information for the watershed project, all of our maps looked so differently. 

This was my favorite class we have had so far!

Buying Maps
Must be a garmin map.
buy.garmin.com
This website has maps that you can buy. It is better to buy maps with 100k.  It is also better to buy maps in download or dvd format because it will work on more than one device.

Today's activity was one like I have never done before.  It was a great activity to tie everything that we have done in this class together. I really liked how we were taught how to formulate the data, put it into ArcGIS, and add pictures to the site yesterday with the tree activity.  Then, today we got to take it a step further by collecting more in depth data.  This allowed us to practice what we learned. 

I loved the hands-on field trip that we went on today.  It was fun, exciting, and one that I think students would thoroughly enjoy.  I think it would be better for high school students, but I could see 5th or 6th graders doing an activity like this if we had 1 parent volunteer for each group of 3-4 students.  I think it would be fun to use this as a field trip for my 6th grade students next year.  I think it would tie in with the scientific method, microbiology, mapping skills, etc.  I think it would be fun for them to bring back water/bug samples from different areas and they could continue to do different experiments back in the classroom.  I think I would add a math portion into this by having them figure out distances vs. temperatures and stuff like that. 

I thought it was interesting how even though we were not assigned individual roles as a group, we all kind of split the jobs and completed the same job at each location we visited.  I thought our team worked great together.  I also thought it was interesting how when we got back to the classroom, we all continued to work as a group to continue working throughout the day.   

I learned so much about the water shed, bugs, etc. today.  I don't think I have ever looked at bugs so closely before, nor have I ever tried to catch them before.  Although I have checked the pH levels and temperature of water before, I have never checked  Dissolved Oxygen, Turbidity, or Nitrate.  So, all in all, I think this was a great experience, and it definitely beat being in the classroom all day.

I am unaware of any questions I have today...But, I am sure I will think of some as I am working on my projects.

Tree Mapping Activity
Things I learned and found interesting...
To start the morning off, we did an activity where we mapped the location of all of the trees.  I thought this activity was very interesting. Not only because we could use the GPS (which was so cool), but because we were able to input other information that we tracked.  With the extra information (height, circumference, type, etc.), we were able to put it in Excel and then move it into the ArcGIS website.  I really liked learning how to input all of this information into the programs so we could create different layers on the same map.  Another thing I learned how to do today is how to link my pictures from dropbox onto my map on ArcGIS.  I think this is pretty interesting because I had never used ArcGIS or BaseCamp before yesterday, and now I feel like I am really starting to understand it. 

Questions that I still have...
How can I adapt the water project to a 6th grade curriculum?

USU-Stream Mapping-Water Sheds

Water Cycle projects for 4th grade
Recreation Water
Biological Monitoring
Pollutants
Microorganisms- looking for bugs in the water from different locations
Chemical Monitoring (what is in the water that you can't see)

Types of polution:
Point Source (comes from a pipe) Easy to control and keep track where the pollution comes from.
Nonpoint Source (comes from run off from roads, etc.) Not easy to control

Bugs of the Underworld-  Really cool bug video about mayflies

Today’s class was a little overwhelming for me.  At certain points I was completely lost, and at other times, I felt ahead of the game.  I really liked learning how to save a cache to Basecamp.  I think it would be fun to insert the caches into base camp as you find them and keep track of how many you have found. 

I could see how it would be very beneficial to use GIS with students.  Students have trouble with spatial awareness, and having them create a service project around GPS could be a great way to teach them about service and spatial awareness at the same time.

I am still a little unsure how to explain GIS to students and how I would integrate projects into my curriculum, but I will continue to work on that.  I would also like to learn more about the endorsement that Cindy Clark was talking about.  I think I might like to teach GIS in a Middle School or High School environment.


Cindy Clark
[email protected]
801-537-9201
Call or Email about more info about the GIS endorsement


Place Based- Go to location in order to learn about the specific event or location (Go to Yellowstone to learn about the geology or geography).

Project Based-Not tied to specific location.  There is an ultimate goal to figure out or solve.  Many people work together for one common goal.

Community Based-Solving a problem for the community.