Moses-Johnson_Alonia_GSM Capstone Part 2

Game Creation

This game is very simple in design. I started with a template from the Smarttech Toolkit since I'm not at all great with Flash and things of the sort. As students get into more complex media type lessons, then I could possibly create a more difficult game with levels and more achievements. As you watch the video, it shows me playing the game as a student would.

Moses-Johnson_Alonia_GSM Capstone Part 1

Learning to Save Projects Properly in Dropbox

The students will be instructed on the process of setting up a Dropbox account, creating folders, and saving their completed projects. The game will be an image sequencing game in which students will put images in order based on lessons taught.

Pacing: The lesson will be paced based on the learner’s grasp of the material.  Upon completion of the teacher guided lesson, students will access the game and work through it at their own pace.

Instruction: The teacher will introduce the material and model for students how to complete the image sort.

Controls: The students will be picking up images with the mouse and dragging and dropping the images into the correct squares.

Knowledge: The learners need to know what order they were taught as far as how the set up a Dropbox account, create folders and save projects in order to properly sequence the images.

Achievements: The successful completion of the game shows that students have mastered the procedures for saving their work.

Story: The story is you are a project and don't know where to go in order to make it to the teacher.

Endgame: Once you reach the end you will have turned in your completed media project and receive no point deductions for turning in the project improperly.

Assessment:  If the students don't place the images in the correct sequence, they will have to start over and the game rescrambles the images.

Timing: The game should last around 10 minutes depending on how fast the player drags and drops the images in the squares.

Fun and Motivation: It is easy to just ask students to regurgitate the steps of setting up a Dropbox account and so on, but allowing them the visual cues of images helps them to retain the steps so as not to have to revisit each and every time they have a project due.

BP8_RILS Links to Comments

Please follow this link to see my comments on Cassie's Conundrum regarding her RILS and GlogsterEDU usage.

Follow this link to see comments made on Glenn's blog concerning his innovative review of literature terms.

ETC_Final Project

Alonia Moses-Johnson

Overview: This is a RILS plan for 8th grade technology classes in which they will be creating college highlight videos. After researching pertinent information on a chosen college or other institute of higher learning, students will create scripts, gather images and design a video in Windows Movie Maker. They will rehearse their narration and use microphones to import the narration into their videos to create a finished product.

Target Audience – 8^th grade Technology Education (Video Editing/Careers)

Materials

· Computer

· Microphone

· Windows Movie Maker

· Internet

· Dropbox account

Objectives – The student will be able to…

· research pertinent information about their chosen college.

· synthesize information gathered in order to write a script.

· illustrate college facts.

· create a video using Windows Movie Maker that shows information about their chosen school(s).

Procedure

* Pick a college, technical school, or trade school that interests you. Use the Internet to research the school of your choice.

You will need the following information on your video:

Ø School Name

Ø Mascot of school (if there is one)

Ø School colors

Ø Location of the school (If the school has several locations or satellite campuses, please include the location of the main campus and your local one. Also give some perspective on the location like where it is in relation to surrounding major cities – for example, Rock Hill, SC is 30 minutes south of Charlotte, NC.)

Ø Student population (Start from a general population and move into specifics such as ethnicity, gender ratio, student/teacher ratio, etc.)

Ø Degrees/Majors offered (NOTE: research the difference between the two. Some schools have several majors and naming them all in your script may be too much, so look at sample videos to see how previous students displayed this information in their videos. I always provide examples of my previous students’ work to serve as a model for current students, so they can see what I expect and gain ideas on how to layout their videos.)

Ø What is the school best known for? (For example, Clemson is a school known for their engineering programs and Winthrop is fantastic teacher education school.)

Ø What year was it founded? By whom?

Ø Are there any notable or famous people who graduated from this school? If so, who?

Ø Why did you chose this particular school? (“I like it” is NOT a valid reason.)

* Once all information is gathered, create a script in which you narrate your research findings. Pretend you are creating a college recruitment video for a prospective student. You will need to not merely regurgitate facts, but speak as if you are having a conversation and that will take practicing with your script once the teacher has approved it.

* When you script has been approved, you will begin to gather images that best correspond with your script. There may be breaks in your script where you want to just display a few images, but I expect you to be narrating the majority of the video. Import these images into Movie Maker and place them in the timeline according to when you talk about it in your script. Preview the video while you say your script. Adjust image durations as needed and add smooth transitions.

* After you have rehearsed your narration and feel comfortable, you will need to get a microphone. Hook it up to the computer. Click the narration icon in Movie Maker and record your narration. You will be expected to speak on your video clearly. Videos should be NO LONGER than 4 minutes and no less than 2 minutes. Be sure to include your SOURCES at the end of the video in a credits reel.

* Once you have completed your videos, you will need to save it to My Videos and upload it to the class Dropbox account.

o Go to http://www.dropbox.com and log in to your account.

o Go to the file folder named College Highlight Video.

o Within that folder, click on the FINAL VIDEO folder, and upload your completed video there.

o Share that folder to teamsjohnson8@gmail.com.

Web 2.0 Tool – Dropbox (http://www.dropbox.com) Dropbox is a file storage tool that is free and gives up to 2GB of storage space. You are also able to share files, photos, videos etc with other Dropbox users. I chose this tool because students will be handling a lot of media and their student-shared folders on the school server is not large enough to hold it all. Also it gives their work portability, so they could work on it at home if need be and turn it in to me.

Social Participation – Although each student chooses his/her own college to research, there is a large amount of social interaction between them. They share where they find information, images, music for background, etc. They also assist each other with narration and navigating Movie Maker. Even though by the time they do this project, we will have gone through lessons on how to use Movie Maker, some students have a better working knowledge of tips and tricks and they share that with their peers. They talk to each other about how they are creating their videos and bounce ideas off each other.

Making Connections – These students are headed to high school, so they have to start thinking about their future educational paths. They also come to an understanding that it’s okay to not go to a four-year institution, especially if your chosen career doesn’t require it. They gain a healthy understanding through their own college choice as well as the choices of their peers of what is out there. If they want to be dancers, there are schools for the performing arts. There are schools for artists, fashion designers, graphic designers and video game developers.

Create/Produce – Students will have a college highlight video that displays through images and narration an overview of their chosen college or other institution of higher learning.

Reflection

a. Students will complete an exit survey concerning the project that ask them questions on how well they understood the directions, if they found the project to be meaningful, if there is anything they could have done differently and if there are ways that the teacher could improve the project.

b. The teacher can do reflecting during and after the project.

o Did it seem that several students were having issues with carrying out the procedures?

o Did you have to do more re-explaining than assisting with genuine questions?

o Are there areas of the project that worked well and could be expanded?

The teacher would make mental notes of things that may need to be changed based on student verbal feedback, and utilize feedback on exit surveys to guide changes as well.

5 MORE DAYS of school left! The beast known as 8th graders will have their last day in their elective classes TOMORROW. You ever get so tired and frustrated that you have to have little talks with yourself just to come to work everyday? So ends year 12 of teaching for me. COME ON SUMMERTIME!

PE5_Dropbox-Creating Folder for Project

I acted as a student who's account was just created in Dropbox. I walked through how I would instruct them to create file folders and how I what folders within folders I would like them to have for their projects.  Please refer to the screenshots.

Click on New folder.

Name your folder College Highlight Video in ALL CAPS. The reason for the all caps is to have consistency among all folders. 

Click on the College Highlight Video folder and you will see that the folder is empty. You will be adding 4 new folders to this folder. Those will be Images, Music, Movie Maker Project, and FINAL VIDEO. The reason for having a separate folder for Movie Maker Project and Final Video is so that they don't turn in a movie maker file as their final and not a video file (wmv). 

Now using the directions I just did for creating a new folder, create the four folders I just listed.

PE4_Dropbox-Student Account Set Up

For my RILS plan, I'm tweaking a current lesson plan in which my 8th graders create college highlight videos. Normally, I've been the only person who uses Dropbox and I give them access to the class account, but this time I want to incorporate them creating their own accounts and organizing the file folders to correspond with the project. You will see in the screenshots the process of setting up a student account. I'm using a pretend student.

Click on Create an account.

Tell students to enter their first and last names. It would be helpful if their email was a school email or a gmail account. Also tell students it's helpful to use the same password they use for everything at school so they won't forget it after long breaks.

In the top right hand corner is a link that says Back to Home. If you want students to have easy access to Dropbox without having to go to the website each time, then you can have them download the Dropbox app, but that isn't necessary, I found. 

This is the page that students should see with their email in the top right corner if they created their accounts correctly.