Using Animoto in the Classroom: Social Studies Research

Do you even know about Animoto and what it is?  I didn't.  But now I won't teach without it!

Towards the end of last year, I got together with my FANTABULOUS Media Specialist aka Super Librarian and said, I need something cool to keep these kids engaged.  (They were suffering mightily from 5th-grade-end-of-year-lose-my-mind-head.)  We also had a HUGE research project over the 20th/21st century coming up and I knew that this could be a dicey proposition!

Here's a little background...

In my district we use UBD, Understanding By Design to create lessons and assessments.  In VERY few words it's: look at your assessment first and THEN create your lessons so that you are really teaching what you need.  (ok there's LOT more to it than that, but this is good. )

The original assessment evidence from the district was pretty good.  Here are the basic questions:

5^th Grade Social Studies - Unit 8  Modern America Assessment and Rubric The student will demonstrate understanding of the changes that occurred in the 20^th Century / Modern America by answering the following question:  How did the issues, events, and individuals of the 20th and/or 21st century shape modern America? The student will:·         Choose a topic - an event, individual, or issue from the 20^th  and or 21^st century(use attached PDF list)·         Research their 20^th and/or 21^st  topic focusing on the question :How   _________________ shaped modern America?·         Create a visual product, written product, or oral presentation that answers the following question:  How  _________________ shaped modern America?

Not bad, but still rather dry.  Well, for me anyway.

So I added a couple of questions and reworded it.  You can find the final copy of the assignment and assessment packet here.   * I could not include the rubric since it was made by the district.

(BTW, I have found it extremely helpful to give them the rubric AHEAD of time to help ensure success.  Also, it helps in grading since there will be no question that they DID know what you wanted.)  Another day I'll talk about how I develop rubrics and my thinking on those ;)

First of all, I gave them their list of district approved topics they could research and the packet of info, but also said, if you think of something not on the list, let me know and we'll chat about it.  They had SEVERAL new and wonderful ideas that weren't on the list.  (of course they did.)

Next, I told them, as long as you address all these questions in your presentation, it doesn't matter to HOW you present or WHAT your product is.  Their eyes lit up!!  

Here's how it went...

Class:  ANYthing?

Me:  yup.  ANYthing.

Class:  Prezzis?  

Me:  yes, but I don't know how to make those so you're on your own.  And your parents must sign the permission slip since you have to have an email address.

Class:  Mrs. Sandefer, you can just watch the tutorial on YouTube!  It's easy!

Me:  (well duh.  why didn't I think of that???)

(and I have no idea why my formatting is weird... sorry!)

The final thing I told them was:  in order to get an A, NO MATTER WHAT, you MUST cite your sources.  (I'm a stickler!)

When I began getting my packets back I was THRILLED to see the diversity in their choice of presentation and topics.  I knew it was going to be GREAT.

On to Animoto!

While we were chatting, Super Librarian and myself came up with the idea of showing what life would have been like if this person or event HAD NOT happened?  How would life be different?  This is the level of thinking that we are encouraging and I knew by adding the Animoto component it could be greatness!

What is Animoto?

Animoto is a FREE video creation website.  It has loads of copyright free music and pictures.  The idea is simple.  You choose a template (these are animated transitions), music, and then upload you own pictures or use theirs.  Finally you publish and you have your own slideshow set to music!

It is SUPER easy!!!  It also has an app that can used on the iPhone or iPad, in addition to being web based, so ANYONE can use it.  

Here's the website:  www.animoto.com

With the free account, you can make unlimited 30 second videos.  All you need is an email address.  For simplicity with the use of iPads, I went ahead and created my own 5th grade gmail address.  ***I now use this address for ALL the apps and web based programs I use with kids.  This way, I'm not blocking up my school account with emails from websites and I'm able to keep their projects all in one place.

BUT, there's more. :)  If you're an educator, you can UPGRADE to a paid account for FREE with proof of school email address and website.  (YES, it's TRUE!!!!)  I didn't find this out til about half way through this process though...  I'll get to that in a sec.

So, our final project idea was this:

Create an Animoto video, 30 - 40 seconds long that represents what life would be like if your person or event HAD NOT happened.  Your music, traditions, and pictures must all go together to reflect the theme AND you can't have pictures that are all the same thing.  Such as, 9/11.  Obviously, if it hadn't of happened, the towers would more than likely be standing.  Please don't have 8 photos of the towers.  Think about ways life would be different in OTHER areas, security, families, etc.

At first, I got blank stares but we talked about it.  

Me:  Ok, let's say that Walt Disney had not created what he did?

Class:  OH!!!  no movies!  no Pixar!  no....  

it went on and on.  They got it.

Next I asked ok, would this be a good thing, or a bad thing?

They immediately voiced their opinion that this would be awful!  I then asked then would my pictures have happy mood or not?

NOT!

ME:  What about music, light and peppy or sad and dreary?

DREARY!!!  MELANCHOLY.  (do your kids use that word ALL THE TIME????)

Ok.  I think they understood.  But just in case I created a fake one that didn't make match.  It had really slow quiet music and upbeat pictures.  They all find non-examples hilarious.

Off we went.  I gave them the super quick rubric.

Our school recently purchased 20 iPads.  I also have my own and I have 6 computers in my room.  So between all that, each child had their own device.  Again, since Animoto is web based, no problem!

****To EASE the process:  I logged in to Animoto on all computers and iPads AHEAD of time.  I don't give the kids access to the password on that account.  So, that is something to remember!

Day 1:  Photo search.  We went to Google images to find pics.  *yes, you can find things that aren't appropriate here, but we have had LONG talks about skipping over it and moving on.  Also, I have 5th graders so that makes it a little bit easier.  They know if they are somewhere they don't need to be, off you go from the computers... for the rest of the YEAR.

They had to keep in mind what their research topic was, and think of it in the opposite. They did searches on what they thought it would look like.  Once they found a picture they saved it (and made note of it's location!!)  If they were on a district desktop, they saved to their own folder on the network.  Our iPads are NOT networked, so they saved directly to the iPad (to be deleted when our time was over.)  They needed about 7 - 11 photos to fill that time frame.  

Once they were done, they went to Animoto.

When you log into Animoto it will look like this:

First, you need to choose your background.  There are some that are limited to the paid accounts, but there is still a great collection available.

Next:  choose music.  They have thousands of copyright free songs available.  AND, you can not upload a song that isn't copyright free.  They already have some split into topics like family or romance, or you can search by genre.  They had LOTS of fun with this part.  *there were time when the iPads wouldn't play the clips.  We couldn't figure out why.  At that point when I did this, Animoto did not have a preview option, but now they do.  They can pick a song and preview.  If they like it, they can keep it.  If not, they can change.

Once they had those two things complete, it was time for photos.

Day 2:  finishing up!

Some had gotten finished in one day and they continued to play while the rest kept working.

They uploaded their photos to Animoto.  Again, very easy.  You choose upload photos and the select the ones you want.  

AND YOU'RE DONE.

really!

After previewing, click on publish.  Then you can watch what you've created.  Also, as the videos are being published they are still in the account so they could watch their friend's videos too.  This turned out to be a great thing as some realized their friends hadn't followed directions, or the rubric, and they let them know and helped them out.

We spent one day sharing our 30 second videos.  They LOVED it.

I had 45 wonderful videos, but here are some of my favorites!!

Life without the Atom Bomb

Life without Dr. Suess

I'm very proud of my kiddos!

Let me know if you think you could use this in your classroom!!

How do you plan?

I'm really hoping that most teacher's dining room tables look like this.  Cause mine does, every summer!

And every summer I get all inspired and start planning.  And I usually end up changing those first plans a million times, but I still do it anyway!

Here's what I used to plan last year.  I know I know, it's a calendar.  And it's paper.  I'm old fashioned I guess but I like to see the whole month at once.  

I didn't write daily plans in here but a "gist" of each week, added important school and personal dates and when I had it the way I liked it, I could add it in my district's online lesson plan.  I do this because the online planner is not very friendly... AT ALL.  But it's a requirement so that's the way it goes. :)

This year I decided to try the same idea again, but I found a different calendar that I like a bit better, and it was $6.97 at Wal-Mart!!

As you can see it has the monthly at a glance, which I really liked, but it also had the days...

I thought this might be nice to kind of lay out particular lessons and have a bit more room if needed.

And... it's always in pencil :)

I'm going to try to use the notes column to remind me of all the cool things I found on Pinterest and the other blogs I follow!

And yes, I've already started the first six weeks :)

and here are my teaching resources that I'll be using all the time!

I really wish that the district planner were easy to use, but for the actually planning part I'll keep with this :)

Game Changer

I have just started following several teaching blogs and it seems as if lots of people are having to change  jobs or even schools.  I've been there, three years in a row and I know it's stressful!

While I'm actually safe this year from change (whew), we do have some big changes coming for us as well and I'm trying not to get to worried or bunched up over them...

1.  We are moving from 4 teachers to three.  A four person team was great!  It nicely divided us into two teams, one of us would teach Language Arts and Social Studies and the other would teach Math and Science.  Our schedule was great and the load of grading and children wasn't bad.

This year we're moving down to three teachers.  This means two things for me.  One, I'll be only teaching Language Arts.  I'm kind of bummed about this as I really enjoyed the Social Studies content.  The other thing it means is that we all have ALL the students which brings my student count to 75 or so.  It's a trade off, but I want to make sure I'm really reaching all my kids and with less time each day, it will be more difficult.  Plus, there will be no "flex" time from another subject where I could occasionally gain some time if needed.  We'll see how it goes.

2.  I found out yesterday, one of our teammates has gotten another job.  I'm really happy for her as she's wanted to be in admin for a while and she's getting to do some great things for our district.  I think it's a good move, but of course that means our dynamic will change too.

3.  Last year we got a new first year principal.  It was a learning year for everyone and I know this year will be even better.  However, our AP was the one who kept us together.  We found out last week that our AP has been transferred!  It wasn't something she had requested but it's done.  She's actually trading schools with another AP.  So, brand new admin team will be something we all are going to get used to. Not bad at all, but learning each other can sometimes be stressful.

Should be an interesting year, have you been through change lately?

The reason behind it...

In the past year or so, with the explosion of Pinterest, and blogging, I have found a million things that I'd like to do in my classroom.

So, I have started this blog to hopefully document things I love, things that worked, and didn't, and part of our journey on the way!

A little about me...

I currently teach 5th grade in a 'burb in Texas and really love it.  I have been in education for 15 years,  13 teaching and 2 in child care.  I have taught 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 5th grades.  When my oldest son was born I took a director job in a small church preschool.  Then my surprise baby came and I moved to full time child care.  After a year in full time care I realized I was meant to be in the classroom and I was lucky enough to get hired back :)

I got hired back in as a 3rd grade teacher (my first love and what I taught for nine years) but as we all know in the teaching game, when you're low man on the totem pole, nothing is certain.  So I moved the next year to first grade.  That was certainly an adventure.  It was a tough bunch of kids, weird that it happens that way isn't it?, and SO different from what I thought it would be!  And yet again, after teacher cuts, and contract weirdness I was moved AGAIN to 5th.

To be honest I never thought I would go to 5th, and I wasn't sure I would like it.  We did our first year of team teaching and I taught only Language Arts and Social Studies, my LOVES.  It ended up being a GREAT first year and I'm thrilled to say that I'm staying in 5th for the fall.  Our numbers look like we will only have three teachers, so I will strictly be Language Arts.  I'm pretty excited about that except I'm a bit disappointed about not teaching Social Studies since I really had a great time with it last year :) I'm will also have MTA students (dyslexic) and have one section for the co-teach class.

After my fist year in 5th there are a LOT of things I want to change completely, and several that I'd like to make better.  And, after spending a lot of my summer break online, there's even more that I want to add!

So, let's get going :)

Let me know what you think as we go :)

LeAnne