Return to My Personal Page Susan Fitzgerald

Project Plan Template

Digital Storytelling

General Information:

• Teacher(s) name: Susan Fitzgerald

• Contact info: 541-687-3466

• Title: Elementary School Teacher

• Grade Level(s): 4th

• Content Area: Language Arts, Technology

• Time line:4-5 weeks (1 hour per day)

   

Standards (What do you want students to know and be able to do? What knowledge, skills, strategies do you expect students to gain?):

• Content Standards: Writing Modes, Grammar, and Technology.

• NETS*S Standards (21st C. Skills): Creativity and Innovation, Communication and Collaboration, Research and Information Fluency, Critcial Thinking, Problem Solving and Decision Making, Digital Citizenship and Technology Operations and Concepts.

  As an extension of the project you've already mastered, you might look to both literature standards (in language arts) and history standards (in social studies) to focus this work around essential learning relating to storytelling and cultural understanding passed through folklore. A student's personal narrative could be the story of their family, rooted in stories passed through generations. A simple prompt of 'what is the most interesting story your family tells and will continue to tell?' could yeild interesting results.

Overview (a short summary or project sketch including assignment or expected or possible products): Students will write a personal narrative reflecting an important part of their lives and their understanding of the writing process.  They will transfer their story to a storyboard, add pictures, their voices and music to develop to digitial story to share with their peers.

Essential Questions (What essential question or learning are you addressing? What would students care or want to know about the topic? What are some questions or activities you can use to get students thinking about the topic or to generate interest about the topic? What questions can you ask students to help them focus on important aspects of the topic?): 

What is the Oral tradition? Why was (and is) it important?  Does my family have an oral tradition? Has it changed its purpose or is it still important today with the technology available? Is it different? or the same? 

Assessment Plan (What will students do or produce to illustrate their learning? What can students do to generate new knowledge? How will you assess how students are progressing (formative assessment)? How will you assess what they produce or do?):

Pre-assessment:

KWL

Ongoing assessments:

Digtial Storytelling Assessment Rubric

Informal observations

Check-ins and check lists

Daily learning logs

Final assessments:

Digtial Storytelling Assessment Rubric

Final Product: A Digital Story.

Resources (What do you need in order to carry out this project? Think: Human resources, material resources, technologiesHow does technology support students learning? What technology tools and resources—online student tools, research sites, student handouts, tools, tutorials, templates, assessment rubrics, etc—help elucidate or explain the content or allow students to interact with the content?):

Sunny Woods, Tech specialist

Interactive websites: ePals 

Software: Keynote, Bubbl.us, Inspiration, iPhoto, iMusic, Voicethread

Student handouts: Assessment rubric, writing prompts, learning logs, storyboard 

Instructional Plan

• Preparation (What student needs, interests, and prior learning are a foundation for this lesson? How can you find out if students have this foundation? What difficulties might students have?)

  K-W-L will help me figure out what they already know about...?.  They will also need to understand the writing process as well as the different software applications (Inspiration or Bubbl.us, Keynote, iPhoto, iMovie, etc.) that we will be using for this project.  One of the difficulties that I can see is that there will be students who haven't worked with the various software components of this unit so I am planning on having  our Tech Specialist introduce and guide my students through each program (probably at the beginning/middle of the year) good plan.  Another problem that I expect is that my students will have difficulty separating their stories to fit into each storyboard so I am planning to discuss several possible strategies to help. I'm trying to understand the issue here-- It seems the storyboard should be an aid but not an impediment (stories come in all shapes and sizes, is this true?) What are the limitations of the storyboard? Can it flex to fit any student's story? 

   

• Management (How and where will your students work? Classroom, lab, groups, etc?):

  Students will begin their work in the classroom and the computer lab as a large group.  Then, they will work in small groups (3-4) and, finally, pairs to complete their work. I also plan on using a partnership/group contract to help my students understand what their roles are in completing their projects and what they can do if they have difficulties working with a peer(s).

• Instruction and Activities (What instructional practices will you use with this lesson? How will your learning environment support these activities? What is your role? What are the students' roles in the lesson? How can the technology support your teaching? What engaged and worthwhile learning activities and tasks will your students complete? How will they build knowledge and skills?):

  I see my role as a guide/facilitator.  I plan to  teach whole class, then small groups and then, one to one for students that need my help.  My hope is that they will look more towards their peers for assistance than me. This is a project that puts my students in charge of their own learning.  They make the major decisions abaout what storyto write, what pictures to draw or bring in from home, they choose the order of the pictures as well as the music, they also choose what they are going to say inthe voiceovers and how to say it.  My plan is to begin this project together, discuss where we need to be at the end, and then have each student plan the best route for reaching their individual goals. I like this. Also, I'd consider having them define their unique audiences for this work-- a grandparent? Sibling? It helps to have the audience's interests in mind when making a creative work. Their plans will include writing using the appropriate technology to complete their work (some students may use Keynote or Inspiration while others may not use them in the same way,etc.).  

  Students will build upon prior skills and knowledge in technology and written expression utilizing their peers and teacher.

• Differentiation (How will you differentiate content and process to accommodate various learning styles and abilities? How will you help students learn independently and with others? How will you provide extensions and opportunities for enrichment?  What assistive technologies will you need to provide?): Other than the very beginning of the project, which is directly taught in a large group, it is a project that is differentiated based on what each student wants to produce.  Timelines, project contracts and assessment rubrics will help guide their work and helpthem learn independantly. For students who finish quickly or need more, there are opportunites for students to add more picture clips, transitions, and credit pages.

• In what ways was this project effective?

• What evidence do you have for your conclusion?

• How would you change this project for teaching it again?

• What did you observe your students doing and learning?

• Did your students find the project meaningful and worth completing?

Closure and Reflection: (What lessons did you learn? What can you do better next time?  What went well and why?  What did not go well and why? How would you approach this project differently?  Ideas from the NCRTEC lesson plan: