In the last couple of years, I have explored and successfully used both iMovie and PuppetPals as a means of assessing student knowledge. After exploring the websites of both WeVideo and GoAnimate, I decided that they were not as effective for my purposes asiMovie and PuppetPals, both of which are easily accessible for me. Furthermore, my current unit and time limitations prevented me from easily incorporating these tools into my current lessons. For this reason, I've included the directions and rubrics for activities I've done in the past which demonstrate my use of video tools for student assessment.
iMovie offers students a fairly easy way to craft a polished video to demonstrate learning. In this instance, students used the Movie Trailer feature to create a video book review (of sorts) to convince others to read the book they had recently read in Literature Circles. The finished products looked beautiful, but we did have som logistic and technical issues. For instance, the only computers in our building with iMovie are in the computer lab, so all work was done there. Students worked in groups, and it proved difficult evenly share the workload when all students were working on one desktop. Furthermore, save and sharing the finished products was cumbersome, time-consuming, and frustrating for students and teachers. I think this could be improved with the recent additions of some new Canvas video viewing tools that are soon to be available on Canvas. At least I hope so. This video assessment took a week, and this was a large chunk of time to devote to a student assessment. I would be interested in finding a smaller, easier assignment that could still showcase student learning in an engaging and creative way. Puppetpals is an app on our school iPads (we have a cart with about a dozen or more...). This tool requires a less intense commitment and less time. Students still worked together to create a script and then record their puppet movie. The trickiest part is finding quiet spaces for students to practice and then record their audio with puppet movement. Overally, I appreciate the use of student-created videos to assess students, but I continue to work to find a way to manage the glitches and management of technology without taking too much time away from other curricular activities.
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My experience trying to implement a Nearpod lesson was frustrating. First, I had a difficult time figuring out what Nearpod had to offer my students and my instructional goals. I eventually came to understand that teachers could use this tool to have students annotate a piece of text or draw on a painting. When I tried to explore the site, I had a difficult time maneuvering the tools. Finally, I decided to import a powerpoint, with the hopes that I could add Nearpod layers onto it. However, this didn't work, and I spent quite a bit of time stressing about how to make this lesson work with Nearpod so that I could implement it within the time frame given to us for this assignment. In the end, I scrambled to add a couple of activity slides to the powerpoint on Nearpod. It certainly wasn't perfect, but it is all about the effort, right?
I decided to incorporate an artful routine into the lesson, and pondered the value of having students circle items or "draw" on the slide with the art. In the end, I decided that my GT students would be bored with such an elementary activity. Instead, we had a rich discussion as students made observations and inferences based on the painting. While it was nice that I essentially "captured" their screens with whatever slide I wanted them to look at, the lesson would have been just as effective with the painting projected onto my large screen at the front of the class. I had hoped to have students annotate on their version of the poem, but learned too late that I would have to create new slides with the poem on it (instead of just adding to the powerpoint slide I had already imported. So students annotated a paper version of the poem as I would normally have them do, and this was very effective. In fact, our discussions were so rich, I ran out of time to have students respond to the writing slides on Nearpod. For this reason, I do not have student work displayed on my Nearpod page. Bottom line: Nearpod -- in this instance -- offered no advantages to the current tools of instruction I have used effectively. I am not inclined to use it again. I'd rather explore more of the features available to me on Canvas and Google. |
Cecilia HaleyJoin me as I reflect on the creativity, mess, joy, frustration, and hard work that happens every day in my classroom. Every day is an experiment in engaging and teaching students using the arts and literature. Archives
March 2017
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