Moviemaker Project Reflection (#9)

Written October 25, 2009
The purpose of my Moviemaker project is to introduce students to the State of Georgia, its location, five regions, and selected symbols that Georgia has chosen to represent it. The target audience would be students as young as the second grade. In second grade social studies the Georgia performance standards cover the five regions of Georgia and some of the key characteristics of each region. Then in third grade science, Georgia students study the habitats found within the different regions and the ways the animals and plants in those habitats have adapted. This overview of Georgia and key academic vocabulary could be used as background information up through the 8th grade Georgia Studies Course. This project combines the language skills of listening, reading, and writing through the use of visual images, text, and a narrator. I could see developing a similar project with students or with a collaborating team of teachers to target key concepts and vocabulary in any area of the curriculum. Because I work with English Language Learners, I am always looking for effective ways for students to learn new concepts and vocabulary. Moviemaker would be a powerful learning tool, especially for my students starting at Grade 3. I could create movies using student material for my younger students.

My major concern during this project was copyright law. I had an initial idea that would have involved non-copyrighted material, but the images were not what I needed. When I changed my project, I spent hours hunting down images that I could use. I emailed a few contacts on websites asking them for permission to use their images a few weeks ago. It will be interesting to see if anyone ever responds. Once I started finishing the project, I lost my sound files and my video file. I was able to recreate what I needed. I know I still don’t understand how to keep everything together as I work on the project over multiple sessions.

This was my first movie. The moviemaker tool is fairly simple to pull an initial project together. I, however, spent the majority of my time on the finishing processes. Every change made other changes necessary. Getting the titles to overlay the files correctly was an on-going challenge. I think I should have done them last. This was also my first time working with sound and video files. Once I created the files, moving them around within Moviemaker was pretty simple, however. As a learner, I am glad I was able to go to the face-to-face meeting with Dr. Baylen and walk through a demonstration with him. I learn best when I can see a demonstration and follow along as I see it. My absolute last choice is to read directions, but I will if it needed.