I wish I had found more images for public use, but I'm surprised with how well it turned out compared to what it looked like while creating it - not too painful, even for the first time! I decided to use Romeo & Juliet as a topic because I knew it would be a likely subject for me in a public high school, and if not this play specifically, surely one of the Bard's other tragedies would be. I owned the song, and forwarded the music to a more economic starting point, shaving off almost a minute of instrumental and initial verses. There were other images I had in mind, but I really wanted to stay with what was open to use to have a better feeling of what my students would face as a challenge to being honest with their own work.
This Animoto would be for use in a high school English class as an introduction to Romeo & Juliet, before discussing vocab, setting or expectations. It fulfills the NETS-T 1, 2, & 3 standards for Facilitating & Inspiring, Designing & Developing, and Modeling technology that would be further used in the classroom. It could be the first time Animoto is used, as a way of also introducing one method a student could utilize it for in a later project.
Let me know what you think!
What a great learning tool Erika. How long did it take you to produce it?
ReplyDeleteIt took a couple of days of coming up with a solid idea, but it only took about an hour to throw this first one together. The music was my own, and I played around a little bit with when I wanted it to start. If I could have found more free-to-use images, it may have taken a little longer, but everything that was relevant and free was all of 4 images. I could see spending a couple of hours on one, if you have a bunch of pictures and putting together a slideshow, with captions.
DeleteI absolutely love this. Obviously a perfect song pairing, and bonus points for the fact that this demographic tends to be chock full of Taylor Swift fans. I really like the "tips" included especially if you plan to use this as part of an introduction to the unit... things like "say it out loud" seem obvious but most students wouldn't think to try that, and it truly is incredibly helpful.
ReplyDeleteThank you! I was worried the text part would be too wordy, but the way Animoto slideshows made it feel like it belonged. I'm really loving this tool for intro work of all kinds!
DeleteCheck out this story: http://huff.to/XiRYOK about a student performance of the play.
ReplyDeleteThat leads nicely to a lesson plan I created last semester, with an assessment that allowed the students to reinterpret the work and showcase it in their own ways. Nice find!
DeleteI think it came out great for the first time using it. I enjoyed the graphics that you used and the song was definitely a good fit!
ReplyDeleteThanks! I feel itchy to play with it more, but I'll save that for the digital story assignment :)
DeleteI thought your idea of making Shakespeare more appealing to students by paring it to a song that would catch their attention was great! It makes for a great intro to the play Romeo and Juliet and will make the students a little more intrigued to read it and actually comprehend it, and maybe even try to make some connections back to the lyrics of the song
ReplyDeleteThank you! Your comment also made me think of a mini-lesson/discussion where you could have the students brainstorm themes, and then find a modern version of it, either story, poem, song, youtube, etc...something mid-unit to get them thinking in a broader sense.
DeleteThis makes for an absolutely charming introduction to R+J, and certainly something that the kids will relate to. The bullet point format makes a notoriously daunting text accessible, and it does make for an excellent setup to start reading.
ReplyDeleteThe one question I have is whether or not you would intend to address the other star-crossed lover story you allude to here. Not sure which particular one you had in mind here, as it's a rather common story.
It was a reference to the fact that the original story was an Italian one from about 50 years before Shakespeare's. I would mention it probably before showing this video as part of a brief introduction on the Bard himself - and to make a point that just because something is famous, doesn't make it original :)
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