It never ceases to amaze me just how much good stuff is out there on the Internet, in terms of tech tools that are useful in the classroom.  While attending #CUE13, my hands-down favorite session was called "Get SLAMMED with Google" presented by some pretty awesome Google Certified Educators. (Note: On the Educative Gradient of Awesome, these people are off-the-grid wowzers!) They had plenty of useful recommendations, tips, tricks, etc. - but what I really appreciated learning about was a neat little tool called Docs Story Builder. It is such a great find that I went straight back to my classroom the Monday after CUE and put it to work!

What is Docs Story Builder?  
Docs Story Builder is a Google web app that allows users to create conversations in a simulated Google Docs collaborative environment.  Check out this silly sample from the Docs Story Builder home page: 

Tell Me a Story: The Process
To implement this brand-new-to-my-classroom tool, I gave my students a quickie tutorial that lasted about a minute, then gave them five minutes to mess around and explore.  Because the interface is super easy to use, this was more than sufficient time and generated a lot of excitement. In case you're a fan of how-to videos, here's a brief tutorial, which is actually longer than the prep I gave my students:

Docs Story Builder integrated seamlessly into Language Arts.  Students had just finished reading the short story, "What Do Fish Have to Do With Anything?" by Avi.  The focus for this reading selection was symbolism, but we also spent quite a bit of time talking about characterization.  In the story, a boy named Willie asks his mother difficult questions about life and unhappiness after encountering a homeless man on the street.  Students were able to engage in rich discussion because of the complexity of the content.   To extend that interaction, I asked students to write a conversation between Willie and his mother, Mrs. Markham.  Students had to stay true to the characterization of each as seen in the text, and include a text-based controversial statement made by the character of Mrs. Markham.  

Here are a few of the Docs Story Builder projects they created:

• "Money is Not Everything to Him" by Rodrigo
• "Optimism: The Greatest Cure" by Michael
• "Difference in Opinions" by Lorenzo
• "Money's Not Everything" by Maria
  
• "Disagreement of a Cure" by Katrina

Have you used Docs Story Builder in your classroom?  I'd love to hear what you asked your students to create - or better yet, see some examples! Comment on this post or hit me up on Twitter (@Packwoman208) to continue the conversation. 

 Happy Story Building!

By Jessica Pack
Follow Me on Twitter  @Packwoman208
Email me at [email protected] 

Middle schoolers have a unique outlook on the world.  They are not quite adolescents, yet could not be mistaken for elementary kids either.  Capturing their interest and truly engaging them in the learning process can be tricky at best.  Sometimes, it seems near impossible. For example, a unique challenge of teaching in the desert of Southern California, is that whenever the weather changes - students inevitably go a little bit crazy.  In the land of constant sunshine, a cloudy day, strong winds, or - most shockingly of all - some actual raindrops can bring instruction to a grinding halt.  So, when it came time to teach poetry this year and we happened to be smack in the middle of a cloudy and rainy couple of days - I knew I needed to deliver an unforgettable exploration of poetry. 

Since songs are poetry set to music, I decided to tap into one of my favorites:

Starting off by reading In the Ghetto was a good decision. About 80% of the students at my school site come from socio-economically disadvantaged families, and I seem to have a higher than average amount of students this year who are bussed in from a neighborhood known for its gang affiliations.  The content of In the Ghetto surprised them - they are used to hearing Elvis' more lighthearted classics play over the loudspeaker at the local water park during the hot summer months. But they were entirely unfamiliar with this song, which quickly and understandably struck a chord.  

We read the lyrics using the Four Voices strategy.  This consists of breaking text into meaningful chunks and color-coding it in four different colors.  Each student in a group assumes a color to read and this aids in their overall comprehension of the poetry text. Afterward, I used In the Ghetto as a model text.  On clean copies of the poem, we worked as a class to paraphrase each stanza and color-code literary devices.  Discussions about tone and mood evolved naturally during the paraphrasing process, and I was delighted to see that engagement was through the roof thanks to the use of Today's Meet.  When all was said and done, I played the song so students could hear it.  They loved it!

To repeat the process, while gradually releasing control until students could execute the read/paraphrase/analyze process on their own, I busted out some other major players in poetry and music.  Whenever possible, I shared the songs or You Tube fan tributes in class after reading.  (For example, there's a fantastic fan tribute for Annabel Lee on You Tube, which really helped cement understanding for my EL students.)

After our poetry exploration, which included a day of poetry-themed learning centers, I asked students to attempt to write their own poems individually.  In groups, students selected their favorites and planned iMovies to illustrate their poems.  Since students have previously engaged in digital storytelling, the storyboarding process was very successful at keeping groups on track and focused.  The poems were read as voice-overs and some groups chose to add music, while others preferred to deliver their poems slam style.  Here are a few of their finished poetry movies:

So, what do you get when you combine Elvis, Poe, CCR, Seuss, Simon & Garfunkle, and Frost?  Magic for sixth graders learning about poetry!

By Jessica Pack
Follow Me on Twitter @Packwoman208

One of the reasons I love teaching 6th grade at a middle school is that I get to watch my students slowly develop all sorts of awesome qualities over the course of a year, including wittiness and a dawning understanding of repartee.  In September, they’re so overwhelmed by the middle school learning curve, they don’t quite register all of my lovingly sarcastic quips, but after the holidays, it’s the long haul toward becoming a teenager – and something never fails to unlock the Sarcasm-Center of their brain.  That’s when learning gets really fun, because there always seems to be plenty of laughter to accent the “a-ha!” moments. 

So, today, when one of my girls said, “Hey, Mrs. Pack.  Are you sure this is ELA, or did you just decide we could take some time off?” I almost burst out laughing, thinking she was being sarcastic.  However, when I realized that this twelve year old was entirely serious, as evidenced by her truly bewildered expression, I decided to lay my best possible answer on her: “Well.  Learning is supposed to be fun, right?  This must be ELA, then.” 

What was her reply?  A hug.  

You might be wondering what the heck we did in Language Arts this week that would elicit such a grateful response…  

Answer: We made movies.

My students have been reading a fantastic book of short stories by Gary Soto called, “Petty Crimes.”  The short stories all take place in the same neighborhood, but feature different characters.  Since most of my students are Hispanic, they love Gary Soto’s writing and they especially love his characters, which include wannabe cholos, fierce cholas, endearing abuelitos, and menacing tias. When I noticed one of my classes was having trouble isolating the main events of each story, tending to focus as much on details as major plot shifts, I decided to have the kids retell their favorite chapter of “Petty Crimes” using iMovie trailers on a couple of iPads. 

First, I divided students into groups by drawing names out of a hat and had each group choose their favorite short story.  Then, everyone worked together to choose the most appropriate trailer template for their project; this led to a very cool, totally organic discussion about how the preset iMovie music and graphics in the trailers communicate a certain mood and tone.   Students were very successful in making appropriate choices, all of which resulted from fantastic group conversations. 

Since digital storytelling is still a fairly new concept for this class, I delivered a quick lesson on film angles.  Next, everyone worked together to retell their story in words and planned the action they needed to film to fill in all of the video clip spots in the trailer storyboard.   The fact that the trailers have limited space for words and images increased the need to retell stories effectively, choose wording carefully, and search for powerful synonyms.  iMovie for iPad was a breeze for students to learn, and the biggest challenge was helping students remember to film with their iPad in landscape.  

Over the course of the week, we spent about 15-20 minutes per day working on our trailers.  Students brought in an insane amount of costumes and utilized my prop box to help them tell their stories more realistically; even in 6th grade, kids love to dress up.  In the end, not every movie was perfectly filmed, but all of the students managed to successfully retell the major events of each story – and they had an absolute blast!

To finish out this blog post, I thought I’d share a few student products:

Comments?  Questions?  Feel free to leave a comment or email me at [email protected].Download my iBook: Digital Storytelling: Connecting Standards to Movie-Making
Take my iTunes U course: Digital Storytelling: Film Challenges

By Jessica Pack
Follow Me on Twitter @Packwoman208