iMovie- The Adventures of Super Smartie

What is it? 

This video is a trailer for the movie “The Adventures of Super Smartie”. For WRH 325, my parter Maggie Litzenburg and I used the iPod touch and iMovie on the Macbook Pro to create a trailer that deals with an aspect of literacy. As you can tell from the trailer, our movie involves a superhero coming to help students excel in their studies. The superhero, Wanzell, helps the rest of our friends finish and understand their homework, which is a crucial part to liking literacy and passing college.

So What? 

After we reviewed the finished product, we must look at how this project relates to the standards. The standards can be found on ISTE NETS. The standard that I thought related thre most to our project is

2. Communication and Collaboration: Students use digital media and environments to communicate and work collaboratively, including at a distance, to support individual learning and contribute to the learning of others.

a. Interact, collaborate, and publish with peers, experts, or others employing a variety of digital environments and media.

Our project relates to this standard because we worked collaboratively with our peers to create this final project. We also used digital media, such as the iPod Touch and iMovie to aid in the creation. If it weren’t for our peers, this trailer would have not been possible.

What Now? 

I really enjoyed working on this project. I was a little scared of working with all of the new technologies, but I found them to be very accomodating and easy. I think this is something practical that can easily be intigrated into a classroom. Students could brainstorm ideas and use the technologies to make them come to life. I think this is something the students would find enjoyable, and also learn a lot from their peers and their own discoveries along the way. I believe Maggie and I’s end product was a success. I would like to use this application more in the future.      

Blogging

     While reading the article by Denise Johnson “Teaching with Authors’ Blogs: Connections, Collaboration, Creativity,” it really changed my mind about bringing blogs to a classroom. I never realized how much blogs put the reader on a personal level with the text and most times the author. The informality of the blog format makes it more relatable to the readers. It was apparent that a lot of authors love to blog. The authors in the article were quoted saying “ Blogging is my favorite kind of writing, it gives me the freedom to be as silly or as serious as I want. Creatively, blogging is a wonderful outlet”. I have to agree with these ladies. Although I am not much of a blogger, the few blogs I have written and or read have always made me feel in touch with the writer.

     I think blogs can make a great impact in the classroom. Our world is constantly changing and new technologies are produced everyday. It is crucial to introduce these new inventions into the classroom to help the students learn how to use them so when they enter the real world they will have the chance to be successful. Blogs can help students to understand the authors works through a different light. By reading authors blogs, students can see where they got their inspiration and relate that information to how they read the book. This brings a deeper connection with the text itself which can lead to a better and easier reading.

     Not only do blogs create a strong connection with the text, author, and overall classroom community, but blogging requires students to use all aspects of the English cirriculum. It requires writing, speaking, listening, and reading. Blogs are also more “in the time” of the students. Instead of reading textbooks which were written decades ago, blogs are up to date and written at the same time the students are interacting with the text.

     I think blogs are can be very successful in the classroom. Not only will the students find it interesting to use the technology, but they will also benefit from what the blogs bring to the cirriculum. I am interested to see how I can incorporate this technology into my own classroom and how the students will take to it. Overall I think blogs will be around for a very long time.

  

Podcasting

     In the article “Podcasting and Performativity: Multimodal Invention in an Advanced Writing Class” by Leigh Jones she talks a lot about centering the classroom around the use of technology, her choice being podcasts. Podcasting seemed to have brought out emotions in the students that formal writing never hit upon. By turning to multimodal learning, “writing was placed in a context outside of the academic setting”.

     Podcasting is becoming extremely popular, and it offers an alternative way of communicating. It is a fun way to express emotions that regular writing can skip. Podcasting envelopes all of the things that make up the English cirriculum, such as reading, writing, listening, and speaking. One f the the most popular podcasts, This American Life, truly shows how podcasts can affect the viewer.  

     I think that podcasts can be a powerful tool used in the classroom. I think this kind of learning can really benefit those who learn best through auditory means. There are no images involved so it forces the students to really listen in and pick out the important parts. I have had to listen to podcasts for some of my other courses, and everytime I notice different things going on. For today I decided to listen to a This American Life podcast entitled “What I Did For Love,” in honor of Valentines Day. I had some interesting thoughts about it.

     One nice thing about the podcast, is its convienience. Podcasts can be listened to at any time of the day and through many different means. These hour-long episodes can be listened through the radio, through the web, mobile apps, downloads, or through cds. I like the set up of the podcast, because unlike other radio programs or television shows, these podcasts can be paused or completely stopped and the listener can come back and finish it in their free time.

     I also enjoy these because there are so many different topics that these broadcasters discuss. They have shows on love, loss, education, money, business, etc. Depending on your mood, or the day of the week, the listener can pick something that peaks their interest. The announcers on this show also seem very real and relatable. They do not try to talk above their audience, instead they use examples and tell stories that everyone has experienced.

     I think podcasts can be an excellent addition to any classroom setting. By allowing the students to use this application hands-on, it can help them discover things they have never thought of before. Although some may find it boring at first, once they realize all the possibilities out there they will be able to navigate their way around and choose topics that interest them. I think this technology will allow them to be creative and successful throughout their years in school.

About Me

Hello Everyone! My name is Sarah Griggs and I am currently a junior at West Chester University studying English Education. I am looking forward to becoming a teacher with a classroom of my own. It scares me sometimes, but I could not picture myself on any other path in life.

In my spare time I enjoy spending time with my family and friends, laughing, and playing with my dog Penny. I love the summertime and hope to live close to the ocean when I am older. I also love to read and listen to music.