Henrico Staff Development

Play "Ancient Mummies"

Students in Ms. Searle’s  cross-curricular reading classroom read and researched about the ancient Eygptian pyramids. After a general introduction to the material, her students picked a specific topic and learned how to safely search the internet and gather information. A big part of the lesson involved how to determine a website’s accuracy, reliability, and validity, and a clear understanding of copyright law. In collaborative groups her students created informational presentations and shared them with the class in formal presentations.

Play Vodcast

Students in Ms. Dyson’s Earth Science classroom researched information about earthquakes, volcanos, and tsunamis. In part one of the project,  students were taught internet safety and copyright law while gathering information from traditional and digital sources. In part two of the project, students were asked to create informational movies or news broadcasts like those seen on the evening news or on learning channels such as Discovery. As part of the process, students created a storyboard to organize their work, wrote and recorded their scripts, and organized their pictures in a video presentation. To accomplish the creative portion of this project students used Garage Band.

Play The Cell Cycle

Ms. Raine’s science students teach each other about the cell cycle using digital artwork and presentation software. Students used Appleworks draw tools to create original artwork portraying the cell cycle and they used powerpoint to create presentations a then movies to illustrate and teach the process.

Summary

Students use SketchUp to build a 3D museum that contains both their own work over the semester and the artists throughout history that inspired their work. This is the culminating project in a 5 class lesson plan that contains a variety of additional activities.

public domain licensed photo shared by the Library of Congress

I despise Animoto’s use as evidence of learning in the classroom. It produces a veneer that implies intent but requires none. It allows people to put on the facade that their students are doing intelligent work. They seem to trick even themselves.

That being said, I finally came up with a use that would require some thought. Pretend Animoto is an author with intent and intelligence. Analyze the choices in image juxtaposition, camera angles etc. Really break it down as if the director had some control and thought behind all the choices. You could do this with random videos from the showcase, have students contribute their own images etc. It’d also be fun to make comparisons between two auto generated versions of the same images. Which film was produced later in the artist’s career? What experiences caused the change in filming techniques.

A simple idea but it does require some thought in a process otherwise devoid of intellect.