Fantastic Digital Tools to Enhance Classroom Multimedia Projects

Thank you for attending my Fantastic Digital Tools to Enhance Classroom Multimedia Projects session at the 2009 GACTE Conference. It was great meeting everyone at the conference and I enjoyed showcasing some of the resources, tools and applications that I utilize in my classroom. I would love to hear your comments, questions or concerns about multimedia projects through this blog. If you have any student work or portfolio samples that you would like to share, please feel free to share them on this blog.

The following is the content, along with links, from my presentation.

Our Students, The Digital Natives

Here are some interesting facts about the current generation that we teach. They are commonly referred to as the YouTube Generation, the Millennials and the ME generation

• The largest generation in American History
• Born between 1978 and 2000
• The ME generation is 95 million strong, compared to the 78 million Baby Boomers

Multimedia in The Curriculum

The teaching of multimedia skills and concepts can be found in the following CTAE Georgia Performance Standards:

• BCA2-6. Students will utilize appropriate methods to collaborate, publish, and interact with peers, teachers, experts, and other audiences.
• BCS-BCP-11. Students will use multimedia software to effectively produce a variety of personal and business media-rich projects.
• BCS-BCP-9. Students will understand the laws and licenses involved in multimedia production.
• BCS-CA2-8. Students will develop strategies for solving problems.
• BCS-BCP-4. Students will locate, assess, and use information from a variety of print and online sources.

Multimedia for Media-Rich Projects

According to the GPS, what do we try and have our students create?

• Usually a lot of PowerPoint slideshows
• Transitions
• Animations
• We also try to do projects involving audio, podcasting and videos
• Essentially, all of this multimedia can be considered to be digital storytelling

Bloom's Taxonomy

• As teachers we tend to teach in the “remembering” & “understanding” category 80% to 90% of the time.
• This is not bad, but focusing on the levels of remembering and understanding all of the time can be.
• Students engaged in digital storytelling projects are performing at the highest levels of Bloom's Taxonomy. Students are "creating" and "evaluating"!
• So based on the research, multimedia projects can have students utilizing higher-order thinking skills.

Here are the Fantastic Digital Tools (with links) that I use in my classroom with my students:

PhotoStory - Bring your digital photos to life with this free multimedia tool from Microsoft.

Movie Maker - Another free application from Microsoft. Build awesome classroom videos with this video-editing program.

Animoto - Sign-up as an educator and get your FREE Animoto all-access pass for use in the classroom. Produce unlimited full length videos from photos.

Prezi - Sign-up for a FREE Prezi public account and get your students zooming sketches on a digital napkin. It's visualization and storytelling without slides.

Xtranormal - An excellent Text-to-Movie web-based service. You can make 3D movies with your students for free!

Enjoy!
Alex