Citing Sources

I showed Ms. Lorenzo's class how to cite sources using Son of Citation Machine. Here is a quick video showing how to use this resource to cite images and videos used with your students.

Email

Email I'm sending to anyone@spnet.k12.nj.us is getting returned to me. Can you please email me an alternate address so I can send you information and updates. Thanks. Susannah

Oops - A Snow Day

Sorry to miss Wednesday. Not only did it snow! snow! snow!, but my Internet and phone lines were out for a day and a half. Hope you guys are warmed up. I will see you next Thursday. We can discuss make-up days then.

This Thursday - Back into the Swing of Things

I can't believe how quickly January has shot by. I sent everyone an email, but haven't gotten responses. I hope you got the emails. Here is a rundown of the same information:

We resume work on the project this Thursday, February 4. I will follow the usual schedule. If possible, I would like to meet with Ms. Lorenzo and Ms. Ranney during the period that starts at 9:50 and Ms. DelVecchio during the period that starts at 12:50. (Sorry, I don't know the period numbers, just the times)

Here are suggestions and questions for each of you:

Rubrics: The last time we met we were working on rubrics. Hopefully those are finalized now. If you have not already sent me your final rubric(s), please do so. Also, let me know if students have gotten the rubric yet or not.

Ranney - We should consider starting a class wiki on my next visit. This will help me follow the progress your students are making. Let me know if you want to.  Also, your major task was to digitize the videos we want to use for the project. Let me know the status of that task so that I can plan accordingly. Also, let me know if students how much, if any, research students have begun. With these answers, I can come up with a viable plan for Thursday. The sooner I get this information, the better.

DelVecchio - I see you are really using your wiki with all your classes. We need to work on some organizational issues. I can also help you with turnkey activities. When I come in, I would like to focus on how to use the wiki as a research tool. I would like to demonstrate to students what should and should not be going onto the pages, as well as how to use the wiki. We want to make sure students don't copy web pages and paste them into the wiki. 

Lorenzo - We may want students to create them to combine the information. Also, it may be good, before groups begin storyboarding/scripting, to have each group do a brief pitch of their ideas. This is a good way for students to put their conversations and ideas together and present to the class what their plan is. How will they hook the audience, what type of show will they have, what is their vision. Putting this in a pitch or presentation both gives them something solid to work from, but also allows the rest of the class to provide feedback for where the strengths and weaknesses are.  Let me know if this fits in with your expectations, or if you need something else from me.

I hope everyone else is psyched about me coming back on Thursday. I look forward to seeing you and your students.

Plans for Thursday

This is what I have planned for each class for Thursday. Please let me know if I need to make any adjustments or if you need me/expect me to cover something else, specific to your class:

In each class I would like to discuss what students thought about when watching television, as assigned on my last visit. Please remind them to have some notes ready for Thursday. In addition, I would like to review project expectations/rubric. Discuss information literacy skills including how to cite sources, evaluating the quality of web research, and plagiarism/fair use.  Here are some of the resources I plan to use:

• Fair Use: Cyberbee (pay special attention to the question "Does it matter how much of a song or video I use?")
  
• Fair Use: Fair(y) Use video
• Internet Research: Quia Quiz or Quia Activity

I look forward to seeing you all.
Susannah

Visit 1: Getting off to a Great Start

Today was the first day with the consultant for Project-based learning initiative. It was such a pleasure to meet each of the teachers and their classes. We definitely got off to a great start!

Each of the classes is planning a video-related project. It might be nice to connect the three projects with an overarching essential question, such as: How can we create videos that both entertain and educate our peers about important topics? Let us know what you think!

Each of the participating teachers has come up with a general theme. While we may working on the exact wording of our essential questions and related subtopics, here is what we have so far:

• Lorenzo: Students will be creating Spanish language videos related to cultural foods from selected Spanish-speaking countries. These will be posted on a wiki using a "Food Network" type format with information, recipes, and these videos.    Suggested essential question: How can we teach teens about the food of Spanish speaking countries?
• Del Vecchio: Students will create various segments for a Science-based news program highlighting current events related to specific scientific topics. Suggested essential question:  How is our world influenced by scientific principles and discoveries?
• Ranney: Students will create video mash-up videos using old and outdated media from the science library.  Suggested essential question: How can we update our current science multimedia library to be relevant, interesting, and informative for future classes?

Teachers: Add a comment to this post to update or revise the above descriptions and/or your class essential question.

 
For the first day, we introduced the projects scope to students and showed some sample student-created videos. In Ms. Lorenzo and Ms. Del Vecchio's class we discussed elements of video production and asked students to reviewed elements of movies. Some student responses can be found in the following two images:

In Ms. Ranney's class we began a discussion of copyright and fair use policies. Students watched the video A Fair(y) Tale, which is both an example of a mash-up and an informational video about fair use laws. All classes will need to explore these topics in more depth over the course of this project. Additional information, handouts, and resources can be found here.

Just a reminder that our next session will be on Dec. 10.  In order to be ready for this, here are some of the tasks teachers need to work on:

1. Rubric: During planning sessions with teachers, we discussed creating rubrics specific to the project. It is important that each teacher determine how students will be assessed and what elements the final product must include. You can find information about rubrics here. Or look at these sample documents: Sample rubric for how to video or Sample Rubric for wiki page.
   
2. Groups/Topics: You can pair students or create small cooperative groups of 3 to 5 students, depending on what your final product will be. Each group should have a specific focus topic that relates to your essential question. (Ms. Lorenzo has already done this)
3. Schedule: We still need to plan out the final presentation date and determine 7 additional consulting dates between now and the presentation. Ms. Del Vecchio and Ms. Ranney need to coordinate ideas and submit them to TechKNOW. TechKNOW will get final approval of dates from Dr. May.
4. Join/Post to this blog: I've sent an invite to each teacher and I hope you do more than read posts. Everyone is encouraged to post to the blog. Let us know what you are doing and how you are doing it in your classes.
   

Finally, we will post finished products on individual teacher wiki pages. Ms. Lorenzo already has her wiki site begun. Ms. Del Vecchio created a wiki site, but still has to put content on it. Here is a handout with some basic instructions.  Ms. Ranney has enough to do for now. We will get her wiki going later in the project.

We look forward to seeing you all on December 10. Let us know if there is anything else we can help with before then!