Week 3 Reflection: Instead Of A Book Report, My Students ‘Wrote’ A Video
As the school year progressed it came time for secondary teacher, Kim Blomqvist, to assign book reports for her pre-teen and teen students. But she knew that while there were some of them that loved reading and writing about books, others students would not be as enthusiastic about this assignment. She had to find some way to make it more interesting and appealing to every one of her students. But how?
Using the Vark Model of ways students can actively learn – visual, auditory, reading/writing, and kinesthetic, she went on a quest to find a better way for her students to do a book report. Kim researched, looking for new ideas, and after asking around one of her colleagues introduced her to an online video maker called My Simpleshow.
Mrs. Blomqvist used My Simpleshow’s 4-step process of making video creating. Which is so simple that just about anyone can do it. First off, you must write an outline of your book report, and then insert the text into a template. Then you begin the 4 steps…
Step 1 – Draft: Answer some questions to find the right Storyline for your topic.
- She used the “Summarize literature and movies” template and also showed the example video for reference.
Step 2 – Write: Use our practical advice and best practice examples to write the perfect script.
Step 2 – Write: Use our practical advice and best practice examples to write the perfect script.
-The guidelines and word limits within the template helped the kids structure their reports for this step. It also helped with training them in precision writing. She notes that it was a pleasure to watch her students ask each other for help while thinking critically and creatively, all while having fun.
Step 3 – Visualize: Our Explainer Engine automagically generates a Storyboard for you to fine-tune.
Step 3 – Visualize: Our Explainer Engine automagically generates a Storyboard for you to fine-tune.
-This step helped Kim have some insight into who preferred which learning style while all of them got to enforce and practice their creative skills using this tool. As Kim quotes, “The Explainer Engine is the most intelligent part of the tool in my opinion. It automatically suggested illustrations based on the text entered in the Write step. The kids loved this because they were instantly provided with visuals to their stories, and they favored the illustration style. They liked all of their options, like being able to choose their own illustrations from the database, upload their own, resize and combine images, and use the text feature.”
Step 4 – Finalize: Select your video speed and a voice-over, and publish your finished clip on YouTube.
Step 4 – Finalize: Select your video speed and a voice-over, and publish your finished clip on YouTube.
-There are automated voices that provide a translation of the English text nearly perfectly, which helps make finalizing the video simple and fast. Some students used the James and Paul voice over while other wanted to record their own voice overs. The self-recorded voice overs didn’t turn out so bad and the students were able to use them for in-class presentation purposes. Once the videos were rendered, Kim had the students download their videos and then showed how to publish the video to YouTube for those that wanted to show their family and friends what they had created.
This seems like a great tool not only for students, but for teachers and other professionals in the workplace. Not only did this website help make this assignment fun for the students, but it allowed them to use different learning styles to show off what they had learned. I liked how this was not only a learning opportunity for the students but for the teacher as well. Kim’s willingness to throw out what had been done before in favor for something that was new ,but would engage the students and make them eager to do the assignment, was the sign of a great teacher.
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This seems like a great tool not only for students, but for teachers and other professionals in the workplace. Not only did this website help make this assignment fun for the students, but it allowed them to use different learning styles to show off what they had learned. I liked how this was not only a learning opportunity for the students but for the teacher as well. Kim’s willingness to throw out what had been done before in favor for something that was new ,but would engage the students and make them eager to do the assignment, was the sign of a great teacher.
Please feel free to follow the Teach Thought team at…