pdZone

I saw this item a while ago and then promptly forgot about it. I was looking back through some old drafts of posts and stumbled across it.

One of those things that I love about teaching is that we can lead by example. We can try new things and show others that it is OK to fail, just as it is OK to succeed. Like I often tell the kids, life is not a race; the first one to the end is not the winner. We can take chances on new ideas or new ways of looking at a problem.

I don’t mean being completely reckless and haphazard in how we do things. What I mean is taking the chance to succeed. We often spend so much of our time trying to avoid failure rather than trying to achieve success.

When I try to think of the times I have failed, I can’t come up with a nice clean list. There have been so many times! When I think about times that I risked the possibility of failure, whether it be in relationships in something as basic as learning to walk, I realize that we all must take risks in life. The only way to avoid failure is never to take the risks that lead to success.

Should I share my ideas with others in my school or my board? The might not be receptive to them, but then again they might. I guess that’s a risk I’ll have to take!

I had what I think is a good idea for integrating technology into Language Arts and Visual Arts. It’s not entirely new - it builds on ideas that I have read over the past couple of years - but I think it meets some needs specific to our school environment.

Here’s how I see it:

• students write script for short movie - any number of genres (documentary, play, cartoon, narrative, etc.) - students could select their own subjects/themes, or be assigned by teacher (responding to reading)
• take digital photos (themselves, cartoon characters, buildings, nature, etc.), scan artwork, create digital images - to be used in movie
• if photos are taken with a bluescreen, the background colour could be removed and students, objects, artwork, etc. could be placed in setting as part of story
• use storyboard in Windows MovieMaker to organize their work
• students record narration, modify timeline, add titles, music, effects/transitions, etc.
• students could export their work to disk/DVD or upload it to school web site (contact parents!)

I think this could be a great writing activity. It could also serve to show of some of the work of our talented students. This could be good for many students who are reluctant to present work in front of the class, or as an alternative assessment (book report or documenting a science experiment, for example). Any thoughts or suggestions?