Dear Readers,
For my final project, I made a movie of my time spent Ms. Grant’s classroom. This project was done with two ending ideas in mind, a final project for my ECOMP 355 class, as well as an end of the year present for each student in Ms. Grant’s grade 1/2 classroom at St. Joan of Arc Elementary School. Currently my position there (April-June 2008) has been as an I.A. 2 for 1 hr and 49 min. (25% time), each school day in which the students are present. I feel like I’m interning half the time and can’t wait to have the ability to be in charge of my own classroom.
Anyways St. Joan of Arc is like a home to me. I went there for my own elementary school years and now work side by side with some of my prior teachers. Its a strange but yet comfortable kind of feeling all in one.
The movie I produced was included all of the students in Ms. Grant’s class. I had interviews with who ever wanted to at recess times and video taped the students at work randomly throughout a few afternoons. They had DEAR time, Art for Father’s Day, a special Dance class that Ms. Grant had organized for them, a board game day, etc. As you watch you can have ideas of other different learning activities that they have been a part of throughout the school year.
With this video project I learned how to make a iMovie on a Mac computer. I had to learn how to put sound in, split the movie in bits, put the movie on the Internet and disc, fast forward and rewind different scenes, etc. I still can’t believe that I did it, it feels like a dream almost. That is technology today it seems though, everything, such as making a movie, have been made more simple each and every day. I also noticed that with the extra one on one time with the students that was needed to do the interviews, I learned the much more about them and felt that much closer individually to all of them. In other words it can be used as a way to get the children’s voices heard one on one and give them that extra little push towards a feeling of importance and being special!
I hope to do projects like this in my future years and that other teachers may follow (although I hear some already do). It is a great memory gift for a child when the school year has come to a close. Its like a live yearbook almost which I only wish I had growing up.
Students could also be taught to make their own movies for different class projects, its an exciting way to get a point across on any matter.
I hope you enjoy my video and feedback is always welcome!
Lindsay
