Sight Project--Day Five

There really wasn't supposed to be a day five. But, the English teacher set aside the last twenty minutes of class for students to begin silent reading on their new novel. She decided to give students the option of using that time to finish up and save their Photo Stories since most students would have to read at home one way or the other.

The bulk of my job for the last day of this project was saving projects to my jump drive. Photo Stories take a very long time to save. They take even longer when students decide that having five or six different music tracks is a good idea. I'm curious to see some of the ones that took so long to save. I often lament at the general lack of aesthetic sense among students. I somehow imagine I will be lamenting again soon.

But, hodgepodge of poorly selected and erractic music aside, I think most students had fun with this project. We are showing them in class tomorrow. I've offered to help the teacher work on a rubric, and have sent her a link for rubistar. I don't want to step on toes or be too pushy, so I'm not going to be any more insistant that I be let in on the rubric. But I do worry. A lot of teachers are still in the "oh wow" factor when it comes to grading digital stories. I hope that she includes the use of the technology--making it flow, having good design--as part of the rubric. After all, a student essay with no flow or logical organization would not get a high grade, so why should a Photo Story?

And, that goes back to my point from my last post. If students were working with this same project on multiple projects, they would get used to it. They would get used to having an audience. And, they would get used to being an audience. The students would develop a sense of connoisseurism and would start to differentiate between what they thought was good or bad. That might help them to determine if their own stories were well put together, interesting, and well designed. And, with enough time to get past the bells and whistles, and time to figure out how long doing certain things takes, they would be able to make stronger stories.