Link to the Storybird Lesson Plan and Rubric

By popular demand (or at the request of my professor), here is a link to the lesson plan and rubric for my Storybird.com activity. Enjoy!

DST Lesson

Storybird Example

Above is a link to an example of a storybird.com book that I created. It is an example of the end product that will result from the DST lesson I created for first grade students. For the lesson, students will use storybird to engage in prewriting activities, create a story on the website, revise and edit it with the help of the teacher, and publish it so that their classmates can enjoy their story! For more information on storybird, check out this prezi I made.

Green Screen

Today in class we got to try our hand at the art of Chroma Key, or "green screen." Our objective was to find a background video in youtube and to film ourselves in front of the green screen so that we would "fit" into that video. I was really excited about this project when it was presented. I wanted to put myself into a walk through the rainforest, in a jeep on a safari, in an empty seat on a roller coaster, a surfboard or, what I ultimately chose, running with the bulls.

Once I began searching for a video to use for the background, I found that my perfectionist tendencies kicked in. I had a hard time finding a video in which I would "fit" in. I wanted it to look like I was naturally in the video. I had to come to the realization that this was not going to happen. It was going to be extraordinarily difficult for me to look like I was really in the video. Once I let go of the idea that I had to fit into the video, I actually had a lot of fun finding video options!

Recording in front of the green screen was a blast! I was surprised at how easy it was to merge my green screen film and the youtube background video using iMovie. I really enjoyed this project and would LOVE to do it with my students at school.