I decided to teach Google search stories video creator after learning about it in class from teacher, Jeff Utecht. After teaching Google search stories video creator to two classes, I decided that I needed to spend more time explaining how to tell a story using the search boxes. I also made a greater effort to touch base with each group several times to see how they were proceeding. With some classes I spent too much time with one group. It worked better if I touched base more frequently giving some guidance on how to write the story; otherwise students would summarize or not choose one book to write about. I also spent too much time with two classes problem-solving computer logon/wireless issues which took too much time away from the learning experience. In later classes if there was a computer issue I set the computer aside and got another laptop dealing with the issue after the class left. This seems like such an obvious solution but I'm surprised how often I lose track of time troubleshooting computers. I've been working on improving my time management of classes. I had a sub for one of the days I had to teach this lesson and I put together a video of how to do it using Camtasia Studio. I thought it would be faster than doing screen shots and typing up the lesson. I'm not sure if it was because it took an hour to make the video. When looking at the videos made by the students who had the sub it looked like they understood the objective. Their videos contained elements of a story.
Here's the video I left for the sub:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lWwI-GSDA4[/youtube]
Feedback
One teacher said that over lunch the students were talking about videos they made in library and he asked me how I was able to make a video and have students’ checkout books in 45 minutes. He said the students seemed to really like the lesson. I had another boy afterschool stop by and say, “I was trying to show my Dad my video and couldn’t find it. How do I find them on the Internet?” I showed him and he wrote down how to view them. I'll have to followup with him next week.
I did a survey of one of the classes to get feedback on the lesson. I got the idea from the comment on my blog and from another blog, the tech volley, where the writer conducted a survey. In my survey, I asked 5th grade students what they learned and most said, “How to make a video.” One wrote: “The Internet has a lot of powers and abilities like humans.” Only one related it to elements of a story. I'll have to continue to work on this part of the lesson. There were 19 positive and 1 negative comment. The positive comments were: It was fun and easy, I liked choosing songs, I liked working in groups and with friends, “I liked the part where we thought of ideas in the book to type.” Overall, it seemed to be a good lesson that got the students excited about learning and reading.
Showing posts with label Google Search Stories Video Creator. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Google Search Stories Video Creator. Show all posts
Saturday, September 18, 2010
Sunday, September 5, 2010
Google Search Stories Video Creator
Hyper. Linked.
Imagine thoughts exploding in all directions.
Like my lunch.
I put an egg in the microwave for one minute. An impressive boom sounded and I ended up with a crater in my egg, (a mess to clean), and a lead for my blog. I love the speed of the microwave and Internet.
I used Google Search Stories Video Creator with two 5th grade classes that came to the library for 45 minutes. I showed them three videos: Toy Story, Monster Cookie, and Zombie Apocalypse. The students had a blast with this lesson and didn’t want to stop. There were a few bumps along the way but we sure had fun!
The lesson involved creating a video based on the books we had discussed in the previous library lesson. Students chose groups of two or three and used one computer per group. A couple of times the students lost their Internet connection and the story disappeared. Not good. Most remembered what they typed so the frustration level remained low. Another glitch in the lesson was that we couldn’t publish the stories to YouTube. I was hoping students could use their Google Apps account but that didn’t work. I tried a generic account on Gmail and that didn’t work either. I had a hunch that the school filter or Norton’s was interfering with the download. I grabbed a video camera and taped their stories. That seemed to satisfy everyone. Luckily I get to teach the same lesson five times so I went home and was able to link a YouTube account to the generic Google Account. I posted an example on YouTube and showed it to the second 5th grade class. Everything was going well with no Internet connections lost and we posted 3 videos.
Or so I thought.
Google Story Creator said it was successful but when we looked on YouTube they weren’t there. I quickly told students to upload their videos and then leave the computers. I took their videos and used an online converter program saving them to a flash drive from their computers. I imported one of the videos to Corel Video Studio and there was no sound. I copied the file to my hard drive but still no sound. Perhaps it’s the MPEG extension that Corel doesn’t like? I’m starting to think that maybe I don’t want my egg to explode but will go back to cooking it on the stove in a format I know. Next, I went back to the online converter and converted the MPEG to an .avi file. That worked, but the quality was reduced.
Here’s a video of lesson.
With the first class I grabbed a video camera and it looks a little bit like an earthquake is happening but it’s my shaky hands. The second class is a downloaded and converted video. I produced it in an .flv. Is that the best format for a web page? Or is an .mp4 format better?
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gh8zMRxu1q0[/youtube]
I really wanted students to tell something about the story. I didn’t always get that. Instead I got a list of characters in the story like on the Pokemon section of the video. I verbally told students that they need to have the title of the book, setting, main character, and tension, but I need to slow down this part of my lesson and write it on the whiteboard. We did do one together but I must have gone too fast. I'll have to check more for understanding. I'll let you know how it goes.
P.S. I was putting in my hyperlinks and went to YouTube typing in TASlslibrary (the generic email account). Guess what! The videos were there. There must be a delay in the posting. Yeah! No more converting.
Imagine thoughts exploding in all directions.
Like my lunch.
I put an egg in the microwave for one minute. An impressive boom sounded and I ended up with a crater in my egg, (a mess to clean), and a lead for my blog. I love the speed of the microwave and Internet.
I used Google Search Stories Video Creator with two 5th grade classes that came to the library for 45 minutes. I showed them three videos: Toy Story, Monster Cookie, and Zombie Apocalypse. The students had a blast with this lesson and didn’t want to stop. There were a few bumps along the way but we sure had fun!The lesson involved creating a video based on the books we had discussed in the previous library lesson. Students chose groups of two or three and used one computer per group. A couple of times the students lost their Internet connection and the story disappeared. Not good. Most remembered what they typed so the frustration level remained low. Another glitch in the lesson was that we couldn’t publish the stories to YouTube. I was hoping students could use their Google Apps account but that didn’t work. I tried a generic account on Gmail and that didn’t work either. I had a hunch that the school filter or Norton’s was interfering with the download. I grabbed a video camera and taped their stories. That seemed to satisfy everyone. Luckily I get to teach the same lesson five times so I went home and was able to link a YouTube account to the generic Google Account. I posted an example on YouTube and showed it to the second 5th grade class. Everything was going well with no Internet connections lost and we posted 3 videos.
Or so I thought.
Google Story Creator said it was successful but when we looked on YouTube they weren’t there. I quickly told students to upload their videos and then leave the computers. I took their videos and used an online converter program saving them to a flash drive from their computers. I imported one of the videos to Corel Video Studio and there was no sound. I copied the file to my hard drive but still no sound. Perhaps it’s the MPEG extension that Corel doesn’t like? I’m starting to think that maybe I don’t want my egg to explode but will go back to cooking it on the stove in a format I know. Next, I went back to the online converter and converted the MPEG to an .avi file. That worked, but the quality was reduced.
Here’s a video of lesson.
With the first class I grabbed a video camera and it looks a little bit like an earthquake is happening but it’s my shaky hands. The second class is a downloaded and converted video. I produced it in an .flv. Is that the best format for a web page? Or is an .mp4 format better?
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gh8zMRxu1q0[/youtube]
I really wanted students to tell something about the story. I didn’t always get that. Instead I got a list of characters in the story like on the Pokemon section of the video. I verbally told students that they need to have the title of the book, setting, main character, and tension, but I need to slow down this part of my lesson and write it on the whiteboard. We did do one together but I must have gone too fast. I'll have to check more for understanding. I'll let you know how it goes.
P.S. I was putting in my hyperlinks and went to YouTube typing in TASlslibrary (the generic email account). Guess what! The videos were there. There must be a delay in the posting. Yeah! No more converting.
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