I'm Chelsea Donaldson and I am a fifth-year teacher. I teach in a digital 1:1 learning environment and am passionate about using technology to engage and extend my learners. I'm all about making my lessons
engaging and fun, and creating a safe, inclusive and happy
classroom. This year I am teaching an awesome class of year 5 & 6 learners at Glen Innes School, and documenting my learning along the way.
I've previously taught year 7 & 8 students.
This is my reflection of my experiences as a BT in the MDTA so far. I had wanted to create a reflection which portrayed my personality and experiences honestly and accurately. I had decided to not use a script when filming, as I wanted it to appear genuine and more conversational rather than interview-like. However I had forgotten to mention a lot of things, so I had to film some more this weekend (which explains the change in camera angle and different background). A big thanks to Juliana who helped me film.
I am thoroughly enjoying being in the MDTA and have learnt so many new things which I have been applying in my teaching. I'm looking forward to continuing to learn how to use digital technologies to accelerate my learners and get them excited about learning.
Turns out it was quite a difficult task for me... The digital immersion days leading up to this week we have created stop-motions, RSA animates, photo collages and multi-modal sites. Today however we swapped our position from behind the camera to in front, as we began the task of creating our term 2 MDTA reflection videos. This was much harder than I had anticipated! Armed with some notes on what I would say about each section, Juliana and I set off to Point England Reserve to begin filming. We hit our first road bump when we came to the realisation that we only had an iPhone and an iPad... No tripod or microphone or camera! So then came the task of creating something to hold the iPad on. We created a ridiculous stack of bags and laptop cases. Although it looked a little precarious it actually worked! But the iPad died and we couldn't get our laptops to charge it! We decided to try our best to hold the iPhone stable and film that way. This was another challenge! It was pretty hard to hold your arms still for over half an hour! After filming Juliana's reflection, it was my turn. This was a huge challenge for me! I am quite camera shy so I completely forgot everything I wanted to say. I had chosen to not read from my notes as I wanted the interview to look authentic, and not rehearsed, however looking back a few bullet points may have been ideal. After watching the other MDTA teacher's films I realised I missed an awful lot in my reflection. Manaiakalani and the MDTA is quite complex, there is so much to it and I feel I did not do Manaiakalani and the MDTA justice. This weekend I am hoping to re-film and use bullet points. Fingers crossed it still will look authentic. Wish me luck... I may need it!
Today was quite possibly the best Digital Immersion day I have had to date. We were set with the task of creating a stop motion movie to teach our learners an idea or concept. I chose to create a stop motion based on beach safety and rips, as it will fit into our aquatics inquiry.
Whilst the movie doesn't look like much, it took a lot of planning, creating and editing! An important lesson I learnt is if you are using a newer model iPhone, take the 'live photo' capability off before you start taking pictures. I got a big shock when I uploaded my photos onto my mac and discovered every image was a 3 second clip! But with some playing around I found a way to turn the live photo off and upload it using iPhoto Library (instead of the Photos app that pops up automatically).
Creating my backdrop
To create this stop motion I first created my beach scene by taking photographs of my 'waves' crashing onto the shore. After uploading the images to iMovie, I changed the duration of each image and saved it as a file. I then created a new iMovie and imported the clip of my waves crashing. Next, I copied the clip, and changed the second one to 'reverse', as I wanted the waves to roll in and out. Then I copied the two parts and pasted it numerous times so that the waves would be continuously rolling in and out throughout my clip. Then I saved this as Beach Scene.
So. Many. Photos!
Next came the task of taking photographs of my characters with speech bubbles. This took a lot of time. I first created my 'green screen' background and foreground. Next I wrote out all the speech bubbles. Following that, I began taking photographs of my characters and the speech bubbles. I took over 200 photos, making slight movements of my characters and the speech bubbles. After this I uploaded my images from my phone onto my computer, and then onto iMovie.
I then had to adjust the speed of some of my photographs. This took a lot of time because some of my speech bubbles had a lot in them, so I needed to make sure my learners would have enough time to read them. After this, I saved the iMovie and labelled it 'Green screen'.
Next I had to put it all together. I created another iMovie and imported the Green Screen and Beach Scene files. I placed the Green Screen file on top of the Beach Scene, and changed the overlay to 'Green/Blue Screen'. At times you could see the creases in the paper of my background/foreground and stick I used for the speech bubble, so I had to fix this using the eraser tool. Lastly, I added a sound clip.
And it's finished!
There are a few things I am unhappy with (like the occasional finger and watch strap making an appearance on screen and that I didn't quite place the green screen and characters in the perfect place), but overall I am pretty pleased with how it turned out. It was lots of fun and I thoroughly enjoyed the challenges that arose when creating a stop motion movie.
Today in digital immersion the MDTA learnt all about iMovie. Our task was to create an iMovie about our learners. I chose to focus on how my learners use Manaiakalani's 'Learn Create Share' pedagogy in their learning process. I didn't have a lot of video footage so I created my own screencasts and included a DLO from one of the groups in my classroom. Enjoy my movie!
