Strategy:
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Use FaceTalk & Smilebox as a student presentation tool to engage student interest and reach a larger audience
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Approach:
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After researching an ocean animal with a partner and creating a written report, students prepared for their presentations by reading their paper with expression to a partner. With the mini iPads, students used Google to find a picture of their ocean animal, and save it to the camera roll. This created ownership for the students as they chose what picture best represented their ocean animal best. In order to get their animals to “talk,” students had to select a face-forward photo that included the animal’s mouth!
I demonstrated how to use FaceTalk to the students, an audio recorder app that can make any photo talk. They had to load their picture on the iPad and put where the mouth should be. Now the students were ready to record their report. Each student recorded their report, and we reviewed them together to make sure everything looked and sounded okay. Each student then emailed it to me so I would have it saved for our final presentation.
Check Out Mrs. Postlewait's Final Presentation here:
 
First Grade Ocean Animal Research Project
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Throughout the entire technology process, the children were excited to learn and completely engaged in the process. As we reviewed each video to check for errors and make sure it was what the student intended to present, they took pride in their work and were enthusiastic. Our final step was to turn all the videos into a Smilebox presentation to present at our Ocean themed science fair.
Here is the link to the idea that inspired this project:
http://karenogen.blogspot.com/2012/12/ipad-lesson-animal-reports-with.html
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Reflection:
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Overall, this experience was great. To start, I wasn’t sure how to (successfully) use a class set of mini iPads to create a FaceTalk presentation with first graders. One problem that I faced was management of the iPads with 6-7 year olds. What I needed was to find a way to help the kids become familiar with the iPads before any attempt to do our project. Luckily, I was able to overcome the fear of having a class of 6 and 7 year olds using iPads at the same time. With very specific instructions and moving slowly, the students were able to use the internet to find a picture they wanted to use for their project. A few students really wanted to use a picture from a book that they found, and that was fine too.
Another problem that I faced is that the room had to be completely silent when students recorded. We are lucky to have a bump-out room from our classroom where the students can record. This was a quiet space, but took some extra time as students could not record at the same time.
As can be expected, we had some technical problems too. FaceTalk also took a very long time to turn it into a movie. Emailing the video was also a challenge as sometimes it would not send. The kids LOVED seeing their work presented in such a fun way. They learned so much about many different ocean animals and were completely engaged and entertained. This will be presented to the entire school and parents who attend at our science fair next week. I can’t wait to see what responses we get.
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Standards:
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In addition to addressing many district science standards, this example met a wide range of Common Core English Language Arts standards including reading, writing, technology integration, and speaking/ listening.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.1.3 Describe the connection between two individuals, events, ideas, or pieces of information in a text.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.1.4 Ask and answer questions to help determine or clarify the meaning of words and phrases in a text.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.1.7 Use the illustrations and details in a text to describe its key ideas.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.1.10 With prompting and support, read informational texts appropriately complex for grade 1.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.1.2 Write informative/explanatory texts in which they name a topic, supply some facts about the topic, and provide some sense of closure.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.1.6 Use technology, including the internet, to produce and publish writing and to interact and collaborate with others.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.1.7 Participate in shared research and writing projects (e.g., explore a number of “how-to” books on a given topic and use them to write a sequence of instructions).
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.1.1a Follow agreed-upon rules for discussions (e.g., listening to others with care, speaking one at a time about the topics and texts under discussion).
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.1.6 Produce complete sentences when appropriate to task and situation.
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This strategy is part of Project SEAL, a partnership between the Model Classroom Program and Lincoln County Oregon Schools made possible by a US Department of Education grant. As part of the school-year professional development program, participating teachers developed strategies to implement in building 21st century learning practices.
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