Week 2 January 14-18
This week I've kept up the morning routine that was established in the previous week to prepare the library for students. I've also grown a bit more accustom to assisting the students in looking for books and to checking out the student books. I'm working on talking to students and having conversations with them and also with remembering their names.
I have finished one of the lesson plans that I prepared for the English classes and two of the English teachers are interested in me doing the lesson for them. The objective of the lesson is to show that literature written even over 100 years ago still has a positive and profound impact in popular culture today. I'm using Sherlock Holmes as an example and plan on using various multimedia to accomplish the goal. I also checked to make sure that the lesson aligns with the standards and illustrated how they match in the lesson plan I presented to the teachers.
On Tuesday it was Library Day for the preschoolers, I observed and participated in the program and Mrs. Milner told me that I will be doing the one in March. Library Day consists of two different sets of preschoolers coming in at different times. A morning group and an afternoon group and their ages range from 3-6. An hour prior to the preschoolers coming down was spent with setting up the program and making sure that everything was prepared. This month's theme was bears. The craft consisted of a coloring page of a sleeping bear and cut out colorful pieces of paper. The students could color the bear and then glue the pieces of paper on to make the bear a blanket. Everything for the craft had to be set up and prepared before the preschoolers came to the library. Library Day started with Mrs. Milner having a hint to the theme of the day in a box, in this instance a blanket. She would give the kids a clue and let them guess and then give them another clue if they couldn't get it. It only took two clues in this instance for one of the kids to get it right. Then Mrs. Milner read a story, "Going on a Bear Hunt". Then everyone (including the teachers) stood up and danced to two silly songs. Then everyone sat back down and listened to the second story "The Bear Snores On". Then we danced to one more song and sat down to the craft. I participated in the dancing and was in charge of getting the songs set up on the CD player. Mrs. Milner read in a very particular interactive way. She had the students do motions to certain things in the story and did voices for different characters. She asked the kids questions and let them guess answers, but not to the point that it distracted from the story, and she had everyone say certain phrases together. After the second story everyone danced to one more song and then kids sat down to their craft. I participated with the dances and I helped the students with the craft. After they were done with the craft I then helped them find books if they needed the help. The preschoolers were all very excited and sweet kids. The liked to show their craft off and one of the little boys wanted to give me his. I've started brainstorming some of the ideas for the March Library Day that I will be conducting.
On Wednesday I began to get things set up for a different lesson that I will be teaching a group of students next week. I went through and searched for various digital storytelling tools and sites. I found some really great tools and set up accounts so that I can present them to the class and teach them how to use it. I also placed everything in my Toolkit so that I can present the sites and tools I discovered with Mrs. Milner and with the teacher I will be doing the lesson for so that we can choose which ones will be the best for their project. Also it will be great to keep these in mind for the future. Some of the digital storytellers include online video editing, online audio editing, idea planners and orgnaizers, places to create stories out of illustrations, 3D pop-up books, multimedia presentations, etc. There are so many great tools that are out there and most of them have free or educator options. It was very exciting to see the different ways that students can present information that would be exciting interesting to them. Thursday and Friday was spent preparing examples and the lesson plan for the digtal storytelling lesson. The embedded examples I created are below.
I have finished one of the lesson plans that I prepared for the English classes and two of the English teachers are interested in me doing the lesson for them. The objective of the lesson is to show that literature written even over 100 years ago still has a positive and profound impact in popular culture today. I'm using Sherlock Holmes as an example and plan on using various multimedia to accomplish the goal. I also checked to make sure that the lesson aligns with the standards and illustrated how they match in the lesson plan I presented to the teachers.
On Tuesday it was Library Day for the preschoolers, I observed and participated in the program and Mrs. Milner told me that I will be doing the one in March. Library Day consists of two different sets of preschoolers coming in at different times. A morning group and an afternoon group and their ages range from 3-6. An hour prior to the preschoolers coming down was spent with setting up the program and making sure that everything was prepared. This month's theme was bears. The craft consisted of a coloring page of a sleeping bear and cut out colorful pieces of paper. The students could color the bear and then glue the pieces of paper on to make the bear a blanket. Everything for the craft had to be set up and prepared before the preschoolers came to the library. Library Day started with Mrs. Milner having a hint to the theme of the day in a box, in this instance a blanket. She would give the kids a clue and let them guess and then give them another clue if they couldn't get it. It only took two clues in this instance for one of the kids to get it right. Then Mrs. Milner read a story, "Going on a Bear Hunt". Then everyone (including the teachers) stood up and danced to two silly songs. Then everyone sat back down and listened to the second story "The Bear Snores On". Then we danced to one more song and sat down to the craft. I participated in the dancing and was in charge of getting the songs set up on the CD player. Mrs. Milner read in a very particular interactive way. She had the students do motions to certain things in the story and did voices for different characters. She asked the kids questions and let them guess answers, but not to the point that it distracted from the story, and she had everyone say certain phrases together. After the second story everyone danced to one more song and then kids sat down to their craft. I participated with the dances and I helped the students with the craft. After they were done with the craft I then helped them find books if they needed the help. The preschoolers were all very excited and sweet kids. The liked to show their craft off and one of the little boys wanted to give me his. I've started brainstorming some of the ideas for the March Library Day that I will be conducting.
On Wednesday I began to get things set up for a different lesson that I will be teaching a group of students next week. I went through and searched for various digital storytelling tools and sites. I found some really great tools and set up accounts so that I can present them to the class and teach them how to use it. I also placed everything in my Toolkit so that I can present the sites and tools I discovered with Mrs. Milner and with the teacher I will be doing the lesson for so that we can choose which ones will be the best for their project. Also it will be great to keep these in mind for the future. Some of the digital storytellers include online video editing, online audio editing, idea planners and orgnaizers, places to create stories out of illustrations, 3D pop-up books, multimedia presentations, etc. There are so many great tools that are out there and most of them have free or educator options. It was very exciting to see the different ways that students can present information that would be exciting interesting to them. Thursday and Friday was spent preparing examples and the lesson plan for the digtal storytelling lesson. The embedded examples I created are below.
Creaza Cartoonist
I'm working on planning a lesson on digital storytellings for an English class. The assignment they will be given is to create a story for children. There are different online digital storytelling methods that I will present to the class including Cartoonist. Cartoonist allows creators to pick backgrounds, characters, and props and arrange them and add text to create cartoons or graphic novels. I made the below cartoon as an example.
This is a cartoon that I created using the Creaza Cartoonist program. The program has a free demo portion and is geared towards educators. Creaza itself has four different aspects to it: Cartoonist which allows the creation of cartoons such as the one below; MovieEditor which is a professional movie editing program; AudioEditor which is a professional audio editing program; and Midomo which helps to organize thoughts and projects. All these different aspects of Creaza are all online programs with storage and sharing capabilities.
Storybird
This is an example I created for the Digital Storytelling lesson. The lesson revolves around teaching the students how to use these different tools to create their own digital stories and use them, specifically for a later lesson English class, but also personally or for other presentations or projects.
Lesson Plan
This is a lesson plan for a lesson I'm planning to give to at least two different English classes on Sherlock Holmes and the relevance he has in modern popular culture.
ALA/AASL Standards for Initial Preparation of School Librarians Met:
Standard 3.3 Information Technology
Showing different forms of media and tools to students that they can then take and use for their own studies or personally.
Standard 1.1 Knowledge of learners and learning
Teaching the class how to use the tools that they need to know in a way that will keep them attentive and focused.
Standard 1.2 Effective and knowledgeable teacher
Using technology to promote digital-age learning experiences and assessments with classroom teachers.
Standard 1.3 Instructional Partner
Lesson was done as a collaborative partner with another teacher.
Standard 1.4 Integration of twenty-first century skills and learning standards
Used a variety of 21st Century digital storytelling tools in collaboration with another teacher to pass the skills onto her students.
Standard 5.2 Professional Ethics
Worked with the students to educate them on the importance of not plagiarizing pictures and presented them with a resource that will allow them to find pictures they can use freely without copyright issues arising i.e. Creative Commons.
Standard 2.2 Reading Promotion
Having preschoolers come in and anticipate and get excited about storytime will in turn help get them excited about reading.
Standard 2.4 Literacy Strategies
Working with the preschoolers using interactive reading and questioning techniques to get them involved in the story.
Standard 4.3 Leadership
Incorporated the library program into the lessons of the English teacher by instructing the student's in ways to create digital stories. This helped to assert the library as a resource in tool to the teacher and the students
Standard 4.2 Professional Development
Explored different internet resources (i.e. digital storytelling options, Google docs.) and practiced them and explored their options to see how they could be applied to the education field
Showing different forms of media and tools to students that they can then take and use for their own studies or personally.
Standard 1.1 Knowledge of learners and learning
Teaching the class how to use the tools that they need to know in a way that will keep them attentive and focused.
Standard 1.2 Effective and knowledgeable teacher
Using technology to promote digital-age learning experiences and assessments with classroom teachers.
Standard 1.3 Instructional Partner
Lesson was done as a collaborative partner with another teacher.
Standard 1.4 Integration of twenty-first century skills and learning standards
Used a variety of 21st Century digital storytelling tools in collaboration with another teacher to pass the skills onto her students.
Standard 5.2 Professional Ethics
Worked with the students to educate them on the importance of not plagiarizing pictures and presented them with a resource that will allow them to find pictures they can use freely without copyright issues arising i.e. Creative Commons.
Standard 2.2 Reading Promotion
Having preschoolers come in and anticipate and get excited about storytime will in turn help get them excited about reading.
Standard 2.4 Literacy Strategies
Working with the preschoolers using interactive reading and questioning techniques to get them involved in the story.
Standard 4.3 Leadership
Incorporated the library program into the lessons of the English teacher by instructing the student's in ways to create digital stories. This helped to assert the library as a resource in tool to the teacher and the students
Standard 4.2 Professional Development
Explored different internet resources (i.e. digital storytelling options, Google docs.) and practiced them and explored their options to see how they could be applied to the education field
Storytime for preschoolers is an art :-) The one you observed used the classic pattern of a short, interactive story followed by music and movement, another story followed by a craft.
ReplyDeleteI am sure that students will enjoy the digital storytelling. How is this tied to Language Arts or other standards? You will find that teachers are so stressed about high stake testing that it sometimes is difficult to get them to collaborate on creative lessons.
ReplyDelete