Video project

For my video project, I created a movie about workers in the community.  I chose this activity because it is a content standard for Kindergarten/Grade 1 students:  Identify ways that individuals in the family, school and
community are unique and ways that they are the same.  I thought making a movie on community helpers would be a good idea because it is a way for kids to learn about community helpers that may not be available to visit the classroom to talk about their jobs.  I also know that kids like watching movies, which could help get their attention. 

I think making a video is a great idea for the classroom.  I first thought I would read the comments about each community helper, but once I asked a few of my students I am currently working with during my long term sub assignment to read in the video, they were excited!!!!  Everyone wanted to do their best recording their voices.  Some kids said they were nervous, which I thought was so cute!  All the students enjoyed hearing their voices back on the podcasts.  Some wanted to redo their recording after hearing it because they wanted perfection.  So not only was the video a good idea for a Social Studies lesson, it also helped incorporate Language Arts/Reading into the lesson as well.  In the future, I would incorporate videos into my classroom.  I would create videos that showed the children, but since I do not have a classroom and these students are only working with me temporarily, I did not want to show their faces.  But there is a lot you can do with movies, such as having students act out plays, video tape steps of a science experiment, or even reading a story each student publishes.

Creating the video was not as "scary" as I originally thought it would be.  Taping was challenging because I used 8 locations (and it was very cold outside).  Once the taping was done, using imovie was helpful.  It seemed to be  pretty new user friendly which I liked.  The most challenging part for me was adding the podcasts into the movie then deleting the background noises (except for the garbage truck, I left that one in).  I would use imovie again if I was able to use a Mac, but I am also interested in trying out Microsoft Movie Maker now to see the differences and similarities between the two.  The making of the movie was a fun experience!  My students were very excited to watch it!

Class participation

This semester, I communicated with my peers in ED 514 in a few ways.  First, I commented on people's work that was posted on their blogs.  Here are a few examples:

Jen's Blog

Eric's Blog

Samantha's Blog


I also texted a few of my friends.  For example, Jen and I discussed our midterm assignment.  She helped me work on my Excel worksheets over the phone.  We also discussed assignments such as our virtual tour.  A few of my classmates and I had a virtual chat on todaysmeet.com about class assignment.