15 March - Digital Story 2

What - Learning Copyright Laws. First of all--I have to say I enjoyed the way you taught it to us. It is a good idea to have the students research and share the information. However, ha ha..... I did have to get after group/slide #5...ha ha again. No, just kidding. It was very interesting to find out that Victor Hugo played a part in copyright law. Les Miserables is one of my all time favorites!!

So What - Thanks for showing us how to use the Creative Commons site. We were unsure how to use it properly. While working on our project the past few days.....we have been saving URL's and so it was nice to find a few pics that were unnecessary to cite.

Now What - I'm better equipped to put together my own projects in the future. I feel like I KNOW a bit more on copyright law and hope to keep learning so that I won't get put in prison. :) Also, I like having a little more knowledge about important things so that I can share it with my future students and colleagues.

We are having a great time putting our digital story together. We are just trying to tweak the music and podcast into the storyboard and hope it comes out like we are hoping. Thanks again for your preparation. It's been an enjoyable learning experience.

8 March - Digital Stories

What: Digital Story. We are creating our digital story about the Civil War. We are teaching a 5 lesson unit on the battles, causes and end to this war. We thought the digital story would be a great finale to the unit.

I was very moved by the movies that you presented to us in class. I can't believe how much can can be learned and felt through images and music. The Holocaust story was haunting and tragic, but it is a good reminder that it did happen. The Jewish people were treated horribly. Their legacy will continue to live on through our REMEMBERING. The next tragedy would be if we FORGOT what happened to them. Maja Angelou has said, "When you know better, you do better." I hope that we all continue to learn about what went on and make sure that we do better and never allow it to happen again.

So What: We have decided to start by putting our project into "chapters". We will have an introduction, then follow with battles, information, slavery and ending. We are grabbing images and have located music. We found the music on PBS' website on the Civil War. We thought the music would be a perfect fit.

Now What: I plan to use this technology on the units that I teach when I become a teacher. It's a great way to introduce a topic or an excellent way to wrap up a topic as we'll be doing during our field experience with our Civil War digital story. I think 5th and 6th graders would love participating in the production of a project like this. I plan to learn all I can so that I can pass it on and inspire my future students.