TavaresCapstone

EDTC 630   Artifacts

Administration of Technology Initiatives: Planning, Budgeting, and Evaluation  

Statement I: Project Description       

 “Lights, Camera, Action!” is a multi-media computer-based digital storytelling project which integrates reading, writing, history, and technology with the fourth grade curriculum. The students at Arthur Middleton Elementary School will have the opportunity to create multimedia video narratives in a movie-style format. With digital storytelling, fourth graders perform research on topics ranging from recounting historical events, exploring life in their community or learning about life in other cultures throughout the world. Students can capture digital images as still photographs, record digital video or download multimedia clips from the internet. After composing and editing text to accompany the images and video, they narrate their story and add music and sound clips. The end result is a student-created movie presentation. Their digital stories can be shared with class members by the student. The project can be placed on the classroom web site and shared with parents and community members. This “Lights, Camera, Action!” digital storytelling project helps bring to life the reality of individual experiences. Using computers to create their own digital story allows students to deeply explore historical themes and research events often not widely known. Other digital storytelling projects include a classroom blog site which allows students to upload a digital story explaining elements of lessons learned. A blog site encourages communication between school and home. When parents can watch the digital stories, it promotes discussion about their learning. Because these projects are performed on computers, this allows inclusion students who may have reading disabilities to use assistive technology with their project. Regular access to technology not only supports students with special needs but gives all students a better chance to reach their full potential. 

Statement II: Benefits to Students                         

The “Lights, Camera, Action!” project will directly benefit approximately fifty-five fourth grade students in an inclusion classroom environment for language arts and in an accelerated math class. This program is designed to motivate students to be excited about reading and writing, and will improve students 1) reading comprehension,  2) research and writing skills,  3) technology skills, 4) cooperative skills and, 5) math skills. This project encourages positive group collaboration since students work in teams. The classroom blog site allows students to share their knowledge and learning in real time with parents and community members. Their finished products will be available online to the masses instead of just in the classroom. Digital storytelling projects positively impact and improve student learning because it builds skills in a variety of areas. Students are given creative freedom that might otherwise not be achieved in paper-based assignments. Having access to technology in the classroom bridges the gap between students who are learning disabled and those who are working on grade level. I will evaluate the effectiveness of the program by assessing increases in reading comprehension, improving retell and summarizing skills, research skills and through fluent use of technology. With this project I seek to improve literacy, math, and technology skills. By utilizing online resources such as a thesaurus or dictionary, spelling and grammar should improve. Stronger school and home communication should be evident when students post their learning to our blog site. These learning improvements should translate to an increase in scores on county and state assessments.