I’m leading a workshop on Podcasting in the Classroom, and have started to gather some tips and resources on my wiki. Stop by to check out the presentation as well as my podcasting links.
We’ve just had our first of two weekend workshops for students interested in stop motion animation with Legos and other stuff. I worked with 2 students (4th & 5th grade) who helped lead the workshop, and another 5th grader who signed on for tech support. With 14 other 4th and 5th graders as our students, we piled into school on a Saturday to build sets, set up cameras, and snap away as each group of kids patiently moved their Legos and clay one step at a time until their stories were complete. Next weekend, we’ll pop the photos into iPhoto albums and then into iMovie, adjust playback timing, add sound tracks and sound effects, titles and more.
Our goal is to create a DVD with all the movies that we can then copy and give as gifts to friends and family during the holiday season.
When I work with kids in this way, I am always so impressed by their enthusiasm, hard work and creativity, as well as their willingness to work with and help one another.
We have created a wiki for our program, which you can explore at:
Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic
As I approach a new session of my after school publishing program, I decided to use a wiki to see if I could help make the process clearer to students and give them more opportunities to work independently. My Edison Student Publishers Wiki includes information about the program, and tips to help my 3rd-5th grade students:
I’m excited about how this program is evolving and the wonderful, creative work kids can do. I’m new to wikis and I think this may be the first one I’ve done that approaches being useful! I’d love any feedback or suggestions on improving this kind of resource.
With student publishing projects in mind, and my own projects as well, I was recently reminded of one very cool site, Lulu.com , which lets you self-publish your own books in a way that books are produced and shipped ‘as needed.’ I have a dream of putting together many of the resources I’ve developed over the years into just such a book. One of the appeals of on-demand publishing, I think, is bridging the gap between print and digital tools. In an on-demand environment, I can more easily update time-sensitive writing, especially on technology topics. However, that does beg the question of what is a book, when it can change so easily! So many (fun) new problems to solve!
