Link to Podcast on Dropbox

http://goo.gl/GZn14

What?
This was a podcast, created with my friends Christina and Beth, that took a look at the safety on the West Chester campus. For this project we utilized Garageband and also went out onto campus and interviewed students as well as the head of the West Chester Public Safety. As you can tell from the podcast, our interviews and statistics show that West Chester is a very safe campus, contrary to what some may believe. This was a fun project to complete, it got us involved on campus and it was fun using the different tools to set up our final project.
 

So What?
After we reviewed the finished project, 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 the 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 app Garage band and the microphone and iPod touch to aid in the creation. If it weren't for our peers. the interviews and final podcast would not have been possible.

Now What?
I really enjoyed working on this Podcast. I had never done a project like this before and it was really interesting to see how our peers felt about the safety of the overall campus. A project like this could easily be used in the classroom, as long as enough instruction was given to the students because some of the technologies can get confusing. Christina, Beth, and I collaborated extremely well together, which made our end result a success. I would enjoy working on other projects, like the Podcast, in the future.

Digital Movie: Bare White

1. What are your overall impressions of what you saw?
When I started watching I don't think I had any expectations because this was my first time viewing a digital story. In Bare White, the creator Liz Braun, talks about how she never acknowledged her white identity because to many people it is considered the norm. I think the imagery in her story helped portray her feelings. She started out with a bare chair, and then moved into pictures of herself from a girl transforming into a woman, and then focused back on the chair. I think the impact of not only the images, but also of the music and her strong voice made the viewer realize how passionate she felt about herself. The music was a nice backdrop and helped me focus on her words. Overall it was a very interesting piece of work, one I think many can appreciate.

2. How could you use digital stories in education?
I think in today's world teens are constantly surrounded by technology, yet they don't necessarily know how to apply it to their school work. Digital stories can be used in education to help make students more comfortable with the devices as well as help them feel more comfortable around their peers. I think an activity like this would be very well received. This project could be used as a way to have the students talk about themselves and introduce themselves to the class. It could also be used as a group project if necessary. I think overall this kind of technology can be very successful in the classroom setting, as long as the teacher takes the time to go over how to use it and what the requirements are.

3. How would you assess what you just saw?
I think the assessment of this project would be difficult, especially if this was your first time using it in the classroom setting. I think a rubric would be a necessary tool in assessing, I could focus on certain elements such as picture quality, voice tone and inflection, picture type, sound effects, organization, content, point of view, etc. I also think it would be helpful to give the students the rubric ahead of time so they know what you are expecting from them. I don't think assessing this would be impossible, but I do believe it would take time and patience to put together a quality grading scale.