Animoto | Reflections on the Teche

Posts Tagged ‘Animoto’

NCTE14 Revisited

Posted in Blogging, Slice of Life, Teaching, tagged Animoto, children authors, NCTE, Two Writing Teachers on November 25, 2014| 17 Comments »

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Georgia Heard and Ralph Fletcher congratulate me!

I am having a hard time coming down from the high of NCTE14 in Washington, DC. To begin the weekend, I was honored at the Elementary Get Together for the Donald H. Graves Award for teaching writing. My acceptance speech is here. I was surrounded by notable writers Lester Laminack, Ralph Fletcher, and Georgia Heard. All three of them were kind and easy to talk to.

Selfie with Lester Laminack and Ralph Fletcher.

On Friday, I presented with my colleagues from the National Writing Project Professional Writing Retreat (2004). This was our 10 year reunion, and we talked about what keeps us writing. We created an acronym, STAMP, for Social Media, Time, Audience, Mentors, and Peers. Here is a link to our Emaze presentation.

Another highlight of my weekend was meeting so many authors. I passed Augusta Scattergood standing alone in the lobby, so I stopped and talked to her. She used to attend these events as a librarian and now she is an author. Her second book, The Way to Stay in Destiny, was available as a galley copy. I stood in line and was the last one to receive one. The guards at Scholastic did not want me to get it signed, but when we started waving to each other like silly school girls, they let me through.

Augusta Scattergood

Meeting fellow bloggers as long lost friends was a joy. We connected immediately and sought each other out at different sessions. We had dinner together with the Two Writing Teachers team on Saturday night and had a difficult time saying good night. We all wanted to continue the time together. Being in the company of kind, thoughtful teachers who think like I think and struggle like I struggle and love their students like I love mine was inspiring and heart warming. I feel like we have begun a long friendship as well as a strong professional connection.

Professional Book Exchange organized by Chris Lehman.

I made an Animoto video of all my pictures. I took along Jack, the lemur, for some of them. Jack is our class pet that Emily snuck into my school cart. He enjoyed NCTE as much as I did.

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DigiLit Sunday: Poem Movies

Posted in Digital Learning, Gifted Education, Poetry, Poetry Friday, Teaching, Writing, tagged Animoto, autumn leaves, Nature poems, student writing on October 19, 2014| 8 Comments »

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Autumn is a wonderful season for writing poems. Donna Smith shared her Fall Poetry Zeno on her blog, Mainly Write, for Poetry Friday. Holly Mueller shared an autumn poem by Bliss Carmen along with her original poem and students’ poems.

On Thursday, I presented the poem Autumn Grasses by Margaret Gibson. My students paraphrased it and talked about the imagery and metaphor. Then they wrote their own poems about autumn. Tyler went back to a picture postcard of Georgia O’Keefe’s Autumn Leaves that he had written about before. I love that he knew where the picture was and felt comfortable enough to grab it again for inspiration.

Autumn Leaves by Georgia O’Keefe

On Friday, I showed my students how I had made a poem movie with my poem This Peace. I suggested they might want to try to make their own poem movie using Animoto. I think this was Tyler’s first time to use Animoto. He found the perfect background, and after he finished putting in his images and words and the movie was produced, I overheard a gasp. He was totally enthralled and impressed with his own creation. This is what creativity in the classroom is all about, that Wow feeling.

I encourage you to teach an autumn poem and make poem movies in Animoto. You may use Tyler’s as a model. Please let me know if you do. I love to know when I have inspired creativity in others.

Add in your own Digital Literacy links here:

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Digital Choices

Posted in Digital Learning, Gifted Education, Writing, tagged Animoto, book talks, Emaze, Prezi on October 5, 2014| 4 Comments »

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This week we are nearing the end of the nine weeks grading period. My students are working on their book talks. I require one each quarter. I also require some form of technology. I am pleased that I have discovered new presentation apps to give them multiple choices in technology. The choices range from Powerpoint, Emaze, Prezi, and Animoto. I am excited about the variety of presentations that will be done. These will not only inspire my students to read different books, but they will also want to try different digital platforms.

Today I am posting an example of Prezi, Animoto, and Emaze.

This is Reed’s Emaze on Troublemaker by Andrew Clements.
http://app.emaze.com/849503/trouble-maker

Nigel did a Prezi about The Whipping Boy.
http://prezi.com/bygmaqkv9vqw/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy&rc=ex0share

Erin used Animoto to present The Red Pyramid.

Having choices creates a richer experience in my classroom and allows each student to explore and be themselves. As with most digital media, I simply allow the students to access them. They learn how to use them very quickly with little help from me. The only trouble we had this week was with slow computers. Not all of our computers are new. What other presentation media have you used?

Please link up your digital literacy posts with Mr. Linky.

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DigiLit Sunday: Reflections on Make Cycle #1

Posted in Blogging, Digital Learning, Teaching, Writing, tagged #clmooc, Animoto, Canva, Connected Learning, Innovative Education, National Writing Project, Thinglink on June 22, 2014| 6 Comments »

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Please join in this meme designed to share our digital learning and challenges. Just as a teacher of writing needs to be a writer, a teacher of digital literacy needs to be a digital learner. Use this button on your blog post and leave a link with Mr. Linky. Please read and comment on other posts. That’s how connectedness and collaboration begin.

Reflection is another means to apply the Connected Learning principles of being Interest-Powered and Production Centered by considering what you’re making and interests are now, and what your orientation is for the immediate future. –Chris Butts, CLMOOC team

I have jumped right in to the waters of two digital challenges: The Thinglink Teacher Challenge and National Writing Project’s Making Learning Connected, a.k.a. #clmooc.

Yesterday’s email from the CLMOOC team asked us to make a list of three things and to reflect on two questions.

1. What I’ve made so far…

How to pick blueberries: Thinglink
Self avatar: Bitstrip

Digital Self: Thinglink

How to be water: Animoto/YouTube

2. What I’m working on:

Poster about writing in Canva: This is a higher learning curve than other apps I tried this week. I struggled and gave up. But I am determined to try again and conquer this!

3. What I want to work on:

Prezi is a presentation site that I am daunted by. I have seen others do great things with it, and I’m sure my students would love it.

Reflections:

What did you learn from what you’ve already made? I learned to be more confident in my digital self. The Thinglink challenge for this week was to make a digital self. I thought I had to draw something. I started working on my ipad with a new stylus and became quickly annoyed. Then I googled avatar and low and behold, there’s an app for that! I was surprised how easy it was. So many online apps can make you feel stupid, but some, like Bitstrips, made me feel smart.

What do you see as the purpose of making this week? The purpose for me always goes back to my teaching and being able to support my students in their digital learning. However, I also discovered that making was fun, and I was compelled to share (and show off). I want to invite you to take the plunge. Jump in the deep end because there are lots of supportive floatie people out there.

I wanted to make a blog icon for the Connected Learning values, so after writing this post, I tried Canva again. It worked better for this purpose. You should try it.

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Celebrate Connecting and Creativity

Posted in Celebration Saturday, Digital Learning, Teaching, tagged #clmooc, Animoto, Creativity, Laura Purdie Salas, video, water on June 21, 2014| 9 Comments »

Ruth Ayres invites us the celebrate each week. Click over to her site Discover. Play. Build. to read more celebrations.

This morning I have weeded the flower bed, swept the floor, and made spinach balls for tonight’s poetry reading and book signing. I am sitting down now and enjoying the rest. I wasn’t going to do a Celebration Saturday post, but why not? I’m happy in my home and should celebrate that in itself.

Because it’s summer and because I like to connect with other educators, I signed up for the Making Learning Connected Community or #clmooc.
Of course, I already feel behind. I participated in the Twitter chat on Thursday night. It moved so fast. But I got a little encouragement about my first make: a How To. I also learned about some new tech tools that I am saving for tomorrow’s DigiLit Sunday post. The best part of any PD challenge such as this is the connection you make with other teachers and makers. (Julie Johnson is a blogger who is also doing the #clmooc challenge. Check out her blog post here.)

I believe that in order to teach my students to be brave in the tech world, I must be brave. Just do it, as they say.

I waited for inspiration. It came late yesterday evening after my dinner was cooked and cooling off. I thought “How to be water,” inspired by Laura Purdie Salas’ new book Water Can Be. I downloaded the Animoto app on my phone, made a video of my cat drinking from the faucet as she wants to do almost all the time, and uploaded water images. This was quick and satisfying.

Today I celebrate connecting and creating. Have a wonderful summer solstice day!

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Celebrating Gifted Writers

Posted in Celebration Saturday, Gifted Education, Teaching, tagged Animoto, Brooklyn Mire, Writing Fiction on February 8, 2014| 4 Comments »

Every week, Ruth Ayres encourages me to reflect and celebrate. She rounds up all the Celebration posts on her blog Discover. Play. Build.

In Ruth’s book Celebrating Writers, she also encourages teachers, like me, to reflect on our teaching of writing and to celebrate the writers themselves.

This week my students continued to work on their books. Yes, they are writing books. Their writing has convinced me more than ever that good readers make good writers. My best readers were undaunted by the word count requirement of 1,000-2,500 words. We came to this decision together, so it wasn’t just me telling them they had to write a lot. They were telling themselves, challenging themselves.

Today, I’d like to share with you an excerpt from Brooklyn’s book. (She is up to 2,270 words) I asked my students to select a nonfiction topic to integrate into their fiction story. Sixth grader Brooklyn wants to work with disabled when she grows up. She chose to write about a daughter of a physical therapist who has a crush on one of her mother’s patients. In this selection, she references two books she has read this year. It makes this teacher proud that Brooklyn’s reading and writing have come together and become an integral part of who she is becoming.

When I read, I disappear from our world and reappear in a new world. I never know what new world, but it depends on my book. Books are like a portal. I appear in a new world, but I am still on Earth. I am in a new world, which is the same world I have been on my whole life, with imaginary characters, that don’t seem imaginary. Reading always gives me something to think about, sometimes a lot to think about.

Looking at my bookshelf, I see the 15 books on the right side labeled “Read” and on the other side there are two books, Wonder by R.J Palacio and Out of my Mind by Sharon M. Draper. I have saved both of these books, because Mom told me that they were both about kids with a disorder of some sort. She said in Wonder I would be able to feel how other kids felt with everyday life and other people around them. Mom also told me that in Out of my Mind I could see how it feels to be trapped in a wheelchair with no strength or muscle to move you and no way to communicate and tell what you know.

On Wednesday, the world celebrated Digital Learning Day. I posted about the digital learning my students are using with their stories. One option for them was to make an Animoto book trailer for their Work in Progress. I am celebrating Animoto and how my students can not only become authors, but advertisers, too. Here is Brooklyn’s book trailer. Now, how many of you want to buy her book? If you have any suggestions for places to send a 6th grader’s 3,000 word story, please let me know in the comments.

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More Dots

Posted in Poetry Friday, Teaching, tagged Animoto, International Dot Day, Peter Reynolds on September 20, 2013| 5 Comments »

My students continue to celebrate International Dot Day. A group of 2nd-4th graders presented Peter Reynolds’ book The Dot to a kindergarten class. We gave each of them a coffee filter. They placed the filter on a sheet of art paper. They colored the filter with markers. Then my students sprayed the filters. (2-3 squirts only! We learned quickly that too many squirts made a very soggy dot.) Another thing we learned was that most kindergarten kids can sign their own name and are very proud to do so.

Back in class with some of my older students, we wrote a collaborative poem around the line, “Make a mark and see where it takes you.” Combining the efforts of all of my various groups of children, I created this Animoto video.

Another book in Peter Reynolds’ Creatrilogy is Ish. Third grader Tobie read Dot and Ish and drew this dot on the board. I thought it was really clever.

Invisiblish dot by Tobie

Tabatha has the Poetry Friday Roundup today. Hop on over to her site: The Opposite of Indifference.

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Chicago Weekend

Posted in Slice of Life, tagged Animoto, Chicago, family vacation, Travel on July 23, 2013| 9 Comments »

Join the Tuesday Slice of Life

The Bean in Millennium Park.

We just got home from Chicago last night, so I wasn’t going to do a Tuesday Slice of Life. But I read Katherine Sokolowski’s blog post this morning about her day trip to Chicago, and I decided OK, I can do that! So I made an Animoto video of our weekend in Chi-town. My husband and two older daughters ran the Rock-n-Roll half-marathon on Sunday. I watched with my mother-in-law, my youngest daughter, and two boyfriends. They did great! We had a packed weekend with lots of walking and eating. Enjoy my video!

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Digital Learning Day

Posted in Digital Learning, Poetry Friday, Teaching, tagged Animoto, names, Wordle on February 6, 2013| 7 Comments »

Today was National Digital Learning Day. We celebrated by making Name videos.

One of my students recently brought in a baby name book in order to select meaningful character names for a story she is writing. The students were playing around with the book looking up their own name meanings when a flash of an idea hit me. Let’s make word clouds and videos about our names! So we headed to the library so that each child could have a computer to use.

Wordle made by Kaylie

We used two websites: Wordle and Animoto.
First they made the Wordle. We took a screen shot of it and pasted it into Paint. There we saved the file as a JPEG.

On Animoto, students can make a 30 second video for free. The trouble I ran into at one of my schools was the Flash player wasn’t updated. Our good ole librarian came to the rescue and helped us update. To allow students to have an account on Animoto, the student used my gmail account by adding a plus sign and then their own name. That way I get the email about the video they created and they get free use of the site.

I will share two name videos with you. One was made using PowerPoint.

Open