Thursday, November 4, 2010

Planning + Collaboration = Success

I am so excited to share this fire safety PSA created by a second grade class. I think this represents an example of what can be achieved with good planning and collaboration between the classroom teacher and an integration facilitator- someone to help with the technology.
Many classroom teachers simply do not have the time and/or the technical skills to do such a project on their own, and a computer lab resource teacher does not have the necessary time to work and plan with the students.

The idea for this came from an email notification about The Fire Safety Project, a video contest for students. The teacher and I agreed that this would be a worthwhile and appropriate project for the class.
We spent several classes in the classroom, planning. This is something that, as a lab resource teacher, I was never able to do. It was hard to have students come into the computer lab and then not go onto the computers. If I tried to have them plan on the computers, the computers often got in the way, due to technical skills issues and other distractions.

Planning is key-
First we watched some fire safety public service announcements. The students took notes on the fire safety and prevention tips. We talked about what makes a video interesting, what makes a video stick in your mind, how to best communicate through this medium. We also discussed the idea of a PSA- using your movie to teach others.
Then we brainstormed ideas for our movie. Through the brainstorming process (which took two whole classes) students considered several different concepts and ideas for the video. They really took ownership- discussing, deciding, revising- until they agreed upon a slogan and 5 safety and prevention tips.
We filmed pairs of students saying "Stay safe, Be cool. Don't be a fool" and students created individual storyboards to generate ideas for filming the 5 tips. Finally we created a whole class storyboard:

We used the storyboard as a guide as we filmed each scene.

Student ownership-
This project completely belonged to the students. The students came up with each and every idea for how to film the scenes, what to say, what props to use. If they didn't think it was right, they did it again, changing, adding, subtracting, improving. I can not emphasize enough the involvement and ownership of the students in each and every decision. They showed patience, perseverance, creativity and an impressive ability to work together as a group.

Process and Product
The process worked, and the students are so proud of their video. Whether it wins the $10,000 prize or not, they have achieved success. Please take a minute and a half to view their video and leave them a comment.

6 comments:

Pernille Ripp said...

What a great video. I plan on sharing it with my students at my school, they will certainly learn something from it. You can tell that you worked really hard on it.
Best,
Pernille Ripp
Middleton, WI

Unknown said...

Hello!! It's a great video,tell the kids that a teacher in Dominican Republic saw the video and that they did a wonderful job :)
@jackiee70
Santo Domingo
Dominican Republic

Ibne Muhammad said...

hi,
the video is very funny. if i see a fire then i will call 911.

Ibne muhammad
8 years old

Binte Muhammad said...

hi,
the video was very funny. If i see a fire i will roll.

bintemuahmmad

5 years old

Jenny said...

What a wonderful, collaborative process for the teachers and the students. And what a fabulous end product!

Sarah Pierce said...

Andrea,

My name is Sarah Pierce and I am in Dr. Strange’s EDM310 class at the University of South Alabama, in Mobile, Alabama. I think this was a great project to do with your students. It is a good example of what your blog talked about-when classroom teachers and technology educators have the time to collaborate, they can make things happen. I can’t believe these kids had all these wonderful ideas. I love that they all got to say “Stay safe, be cool. Don’t be a fool.” They should all be very proud of this video and making this on their own. I hope they win the money.