5th Graders Using iMovie

About 2-3 weeks ago I was emailed by Mrs. Harr and Mrs. Carr to provide some ideas related to using iMovie in their 5th grade classroom so students can report on a mystery book they have read.  Instead of kids typing out their report about the book, the used iMovie to express their report about the book for others to view and learn from.  I was in their classroom each day for 1 full week for 1 hour at a time.
The 1st day I introduced iMovie and they were able to play around with it, while having the opportunity to create their Book title slide, Author title slide, and Reviewed By title slide for the start of their iMovie project.  Mrs. Harr and Mrs. Carr provided them with a checklist of iMovie skills that they had to try out and use to get graded on.
The 2nd, 3rd, and 4th days the students kept working on their iMovie while adding their video recorded book review of their mystery book through the web cam on the laptops.  The students then were able to add music or sound effects to their iMovie project, before finalizing it on the 5th day and getting it onto Mrs. Harr's computer for her to look at and then showcase.

It took some time trying to figure out the right web site tool to be able to showcase each students finished product, but we finally found 1 that was free, so far has no limit on storage space and is easy to use.

It is: http://www.capzles.com/

and the students finished products are here:
http://www.capzles.com/#/4abfa7ac-e811-4b88-b019-d0f280f41def

Take a look.

Before Thanksgiving Break Continued

4th Grade students used a few web sites, learned about Pages (Microsoft Word), Keynote (Microsoft PowerPoint) and used KidSpiration.  They are becoming experts in using the laptops fluently and being able to login to any computer with their own account information so they do not have to use the same computer each time.
Their online activities were:
http://www.readwritethink.org/search/?resource_type=16
Pages
Keynote

5th Grade students used a few web sites, learned about Pages (Microsoft Word), Keynote (Microsoft PowerPoint) and used iMovie to create mystery book information.  They definitely are experts in using the laptops fluently, being able to login to any computer with their own account information and are quickly starting to learn all of the keyboard shortcuts to use the laptops more efficiently.

Their online activities were:

http://www.readwritethink.org/search/?resource_type=16

Pages

Keynote

iMovie

4-5th Middle School TAG students are starting to use iMovie to create digital portfolios with Mrs. Braun.  They just started but I can't wait to see their finished products over time with the information they include and with their final revised product with iMovie.

5th Grade iMovie-5th Grade Memories

The 5th grade students have started to use iMovie to create and produce a movie related to 5th grade memories.  They had 2 topics to pick from.  10 things you liked/will miss about 5th grade or 10 things you want 4th graders to know about 5th grade.

Before they picked their topic they took the opportunity to watch a few iMovie video tutorials related to how to change font, how to add a slide, how to complete transitions, etc.  After learning more about how to use iMovie and after picking their topic they have picked their theme for their production to focus around, have been adding in the title slide, their information slides and their transitions.  Soon they will finish off their iMovie products by adding pictures that students have taken around the school along with sound effects if they have time.

They will export their iMovie project and Mr. Morton will burn a DVD with each classes finished products for their teachers to show to the students.

It will be interesting to see what they liked/miss about 5th grade or what they think 4th graders should know.  Stay tuned

5th Grade Internet Safety-Email

The 5th grade students took the opportunity to learn a little bit more about Internet Safety especially in regards to Handling Email and Email Manners.  Check out the documents below that they worked on in class, and hopefully brought home to better help you and them understand email and the responsibilities associated with having an email account.  If they do not have an email account, hopefully these documents to can provide with reasons why they shouldn't or reasons why they could.

Good Email Manners

Handling Email and IM

5th Grade Countries-PowerPoint

The 5th graders are starting to finish their Microsoft PowerPoint projects.  They have been working on these for quite some time now with the goal of providing a presentation that includes: 2 or more WordArt creations, 5 or more slides, 5 or more clipart pictures/Internet images, transitions, 14 researched country facts, and a resources used slide.  So through this process they have learned to complete the above skills as well as: typing in their facts or highlighting, copying and pasting their facts in, adding bullets to their facts, inserting their pictures, rotating, cropping and sizing their pictures, animating their pictures and text, and using their creative mind to make their PowerPoint unique and individualistic.

Be looking for their finished PowerPoint presentations up on the 5th grade Keyboarding web site by the end of the month.

5th Grade Countries-Poster "VoiceThread"

Click the link above to view and participate in this VoiceThread on the 5th grade students Microsoft Word posters. Making comments is really simple and you can delete and re-record as many times as you like. You and your student(s) may comment on their own poster or others as they appropriately see fit.

A VoiceThread is an online media album that allows a group of people to make school appropriate comments on images, videos, and documents, really simply. You can participate 5 different ways - using your voice (with a microphone or telephone), text, audio file, or video (with a webcam). It's easy to control who can access and comment on a VoiceThread, which makes it a secure place to talk about almost anything: business and academic presentations, travelogues, family history, art critiques, language study, tutorials, book clubs and digital storytelling. A VoiceThread allows an entire group conversation to be collected from anywhere in the world and then shared in one simple place.

5th Grade Countries-Poster

The fifth grade students have recently finished using Microsoft Word as a graphical tool to create a poster to entice someone to travel to their country.  They had certain things that had to include but with the goal in mind that if they would hand their 1 page poster document to someone on the street would they be interested and engaged to ask more questions about traveling to your country.  The fifth grade students did a wonderful with this, learning how to insert pictures into their poster, how to move them around, how to insert WordArt and text boxes to be able to type anywhere, and how to fill their page up with credible pictures and information to be creative.

Please check out their finished Microsoft Word Posters.

5th Grade Countries-Pictures/Poster

The 5th grade students are starting to learn how to save pictures from the Internet onto their computer to be able to use when creating their Microsoft Word Country Poster and their Microsoft PowerPoint Country Presentation.  The students are saving pictures from web sites provided by Mr. Morton, in relationship to monitoring copyright infringement.  They are saving these by holding down the control/ctrl button on the keyboard and then pressing the mouse and clicking "Save Image As" to save the picture to their desktop.  We talked about how the control/ctrl key is identical to a right click with a 2-button mouse, which both can be effective and practiced at home.

When the students start their poster they are going to simply create a 1 page poster in Microsoft Word full of pictures and text to better entice someone to travel to their country based off of the pictures and information they provide.  Another way to use Microsoft Word as a graphical tool more than a typing/word-processing skill.

5th Grade Countries-Country Research

The fifth graders are on their second part of their Project-Based Learning project, Where Should I Go This Summer?  They are now working on their country research using provided web sites located on their wiki. Each partner is looking up 7 facts on the wiki pertained to their country and then transferring that information onto their country facts research sheet which is located in Microsoft Word.

The students are heavily focusing on copying and pasting their information and urls from their internet resources into their Microsoft Word document.  The purpose of this is to cut back on the time needed to type in everything little thing and to learn a new quick tip that they can further use at home.

Please have your student(s) show you how to COPY (Edit in the Menu Bar >Copy) and PASTE (Edit in the Menu Bar >Paste) different items at home.  This is good practice for them.

5th Grade Countries-Excel

The 5th grade students have completed their Microsoft Excel Travel Plans based on their country with their partner. Please take a look.

During their experiences of working with Microsoft Excel they learned how to copy and paste information and web sites from the Internet into Excel, how to use different tools within Excel, how to create formulas to easily add totals together, and how to make a pie chart.

The students should be bringing home a blue colored assessment sheet for their Microsoft Excel work. Please take a look at their progress. Thanks, Brandon.

The students are now researching about their country and next will individually be creating a poster using Microsoft Word.

5th Grade Countries-Research

The 5th grade students are currently starting the second part of their project, researching about their country. Each partner has to look up 7 facts using web sites provided by Mr. Morton. The students have to make sure they copy down the URL (web site), as we heavily talked about copyright in 5th grade. The students are learning how to copy and paste their information into their Microsoft Word Research document from the information they find on the provided web sites.

Here is the research they are looking up.

5th Grade Countries-Excel

The 5th grade students are almost finished with the first part of their, "Where Should I Go This Summer," project. They are getting ready to finish their Microsoft Excel documents detailing their travel plan itinerary of airfare costs, hotel costs, food costs, activities costs, and costs for extra expenses. The information they find is documented on their Excel and then they use formulas to add all of the expenses and then they use a pie chart to explain the expenses. They are graded out of 20 points for this part of their project and they will be sent home a skill/checklist assessment sheet with how well they did.

Here is where their finished projects will be located sometime shortly after Thanksgiving Break.

5th Grade Countries

The 5th grade students are starting their, "Where Should I Go This Summer," project. They have been introduced to the project, have been shown examples of various parts of the project from last years student work, and have been grouped with their partner(s). Next time I see them they will be picking out their country that they want to research and learn more about, will be introduced to how we are going to start the project and then will start finding out different travelers information such as airfare, hotel, food, activities, etc. that they will import into a Microsoft Excel template. With the information they gather and technology skills they use, they should be able to help their parents plan a upcoming vacation getaway to another town, state or country within the near future.

There will be times that I ask the students to complete some work at home, so if an assignment is in their assignment book for Technology/Computer Lab please make sure the students stay on task to finish the assignment within the required time frame. Thanks.

Here is a Parent Letter explaining more about the country

and

Here are the Countries they get to choose from.

3rd-5th grade

The 3rd-5th grade students have been actively involved in the computer lab since the first day of school. We started the school year being reminded of and learning the expectations in the computer lab and then went right into a mini-project where each 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade student designed their name, to be cut out and posted around Mr. Morton's computer lab for the school year. Each grade level approached this differently.

3rd grade just used the basic font/text features of Microsoft Word to create their name. 4th grade could used the basic font/text features or could use WordArt in Microsoft Word to create their name. 5th grade could use the Microsoft Word basic font/text features or WordArt or could use a web site that creates logo.

The web site is called Flaming Text. It is a great web site to create logos for free, which I have used extensively for the Eason Web Site, and if allowed by your student(s) (I reminded them to ask permission first) he/she could show you how the web site works, which could then be a new web site for personal use at home or for business work to create logos.