Week 7 Technology Lesson Plan: Animoto

This week's assignment was to develop a lesson plan using some of the technologies from iGoogle and eLearning. I revisited the iGoogle and eLearning sites to review myself on the mutitude of available technologies. Then I made a list of the ones that interested me, and ones that I thought would interest high school level students. I finally made the decision to develop the learning objective on animating a selected Taysha book or a banned book. I chose the Taysha category because I recently read the book entitled Shift by Jennifer Bradbury which made the 2009 Taysha reading list, and I was impressed by this author's first published book. I chose the banned book category because I thought that would whet the appetite of reluctant readers - you know: like "forbidden fruit".

My rationale for using Animoto is that high school students are enthusiastic about movie trailers which draw them to go see the movie. Therefore, a book trailer should have the same affect - it should draw the student to read the book. I also know that teenagers love to Google so I saw using Google Books and Google Search to locate the appropriate book for the book trailer would be the perfect search tools. Teenagers also LOVE to text and chat online, so students would be excited about sharing books with each other if they paired up on the Voice & Video Chat application at Google. Then evaluating and posting the partner's book chat, as well as their own trailer and reflection onto their individual blogs would provide accountabiltity in a positive way and in sharing environment.

I have many expectations for learning outcomes. In my tech plan I will be using Jing to present part of the lesson. This is a new experience for me as I have only used the Jing tool once. I have also used Animoto only twice so I am certainly no expert with this technology either. As far as the students are concerned, I know that few if any of the students in my district have ever created a book trailer. They have seen one that the librarian recently published, but this lesson will provide the opportunity for the student to design the trailer. I also think that students are familiar with Google applications, but the only one they use on a regular basis are the search tools. The Voice & Video Chat will be a new and entertaining experience for them. In summary, this technology lesson will be a learning experience for the instructor and the student which I think is the most stimulating kind of lesson.

I am certainly viewing my instruction very differently now than from the start of this course. I had NO idea that there were so many Web 2.0 technologies out there. I basically associated Web 2.0 with wikis, blogs, and facebook. Truely I am excited to know that I CAN use more digital tools in my classroom to enhance teaching and learning simultaneously. I am also learning to get out of my "comfort zone" and get my hands on these digital devices (no fear), and just play with them - trial and error - until I teach myself to use them productively.