Lai Chi Kok CPS Project

Ths is a digital storytelling project that I’m carrying out with 5 student teachers in the first term of 2009-2010 at Lai Chi Kok Catholic Primary School. The project is in the form of an extra-curricular activity for 30 Primary 3 children, who meet each Friday afternoon for 10 consecutive weeks. The objective of the project is to guide the children to produce 3 digital stories each at the end of the project.

Proposal DST at LCKCPS

Session 1, Sept 25

Session 1 Rundown

This was the first session, which should have started at 2:10 pm and ended at 3:00 pm.  In other words, I should have had 50 minutes. But it turned out that as this was the first ECA session in the school, the cooperating teacher, Ms Chow, had to take a lot of time to gather the children from the various P.3 classes and led them to the computer room. When everyone arrived, it was already 2:30 pm. And then Ms Chow told me I had to dismiss them at 2:55 so they could catch the school bus home.

So, it turned out that I only had time to show them the 12 cartoon characters on the screen and to get them to say the names. Then they broke into groups of six to seven, to meet with one student teacher, who asked them a few simple questions to get an idea of their English levels. Little was achieved in this session.  Also, the pictures of the cartoon characters turned out to be too small for the screen.

Session 2 (Oct 2)

Session 2 Rundown

When we arrived at the computer room, we were shocked, because another teacher was doing something with some children. I enquired with the teacher, and he said he had been assigned that room for the ECA. In a great hurry, we switched to another computer lab. But I was a bit flustered, becaue I had no time to find out about the equipment and computers in this room, and the children would turn up soon. Then, the software, Photo Story 3, was not installed in the computers in this room!

Anyway, I started again by revising the names of the cartoon characters with them. I had added two new pictures this time: Transformers, and Superman, because they were mentioned by some of the kids last time.  (Of course, some of the characters we had thought the  children would like turned out to be not the case, like Rillakuma.

As there was nothing we could do on the student computers, I put the children into groups, and had the student teachers ask them which cartoon characters they liked.

I finished by showing the digital story I had prepared about the cartoon characters I liked, as an example of what they were going to produce. I gave them a pep talk, saying that they would be producing one like that. (But when I listened to my narration again,I realised my example was not good enough, because my voice did not sound spirited enough.)

Session 3 (Oct 9)

Session 3 Rundown

We were given the original computer lab, which had Photo Story 3 installed, back again. But to my dismay, the technician had not plugged in the recording headsets, as I had requested, and started doing so while I was carrying the session.

I started by revising the names of the characters once again. To add interest and challenge, i had rotated the pictures, so that they had to take a bit of time to recognise each character. This proved to be quite effective in catching their attention. I invited two student teachers to take over this part, as I wanted them to get some experience in interacting with children.

My original plan was to have each child produce a narrated story containing three to four characters they liked. While I was demonstrating how to use Photo Story 3 to start a project, the technician who had been plugging in the headsets came over to me and quietly said that the microphones were not working. Just my luck!

I changed my plan on the spot, and dropped the voice recording part. After demonstration, I got the children to start their first story project, individually, on a computer. They would not do the narration part. They would download all the 12 pictures from the Teacher’s Folder, import them into Photo Story 3, deleted 8 of them so that only 4, which were the ones they liked the most, would remain in the story board. They would then save their project file in the Teacher’s Folder. This was all they had time for.

All the children were able to do it, in fact, a few of them very very quickly, not requiring any help from the student teachers. When the bell rang, I had a project file from everyone. i was pleased with that, because after 3 sessions, they had finally produced a product, which would be good for keeping up their motivation (especially if I showed some of them in the next session to the whole class).

I was also impressed with their I.T. skills. At the endof this session, I was strongly convinced that my original plan of getting them to produce 3 digital stories by the end of 10 sessions would work out.

Session 4 (Oct 16)

Session 4 Rundown

Again the lack of time seriously affected the implementation of the original plan.

When the children all arrived, it was already 2:25 pm. Seeing that, I shortened the first stage (motivation by having the children watch some of the converted videos produced by their group mates), so that I could proceed to the demonstration of adding subtitles recording as soon as possible. The demonstration turned out to require much more time than I anticipated. So I decide to cut the script preparation part, so that the children could start the recording as soon as possible.

My original thinking regarding the story script was like this:

Since last time, they had successfully imported 4 pictures into a Photostory 3 project already, this time if they simply say “I like A; I like B; I like C; I like D”, the narration would sound too mechanical. If they add a sentence after each favourite cartoon character, then the narration would be more interesting and more valuable in terms of language practice.”

here is the story one script I prepared:

Story One Script

So, I was faced with this dilemma: it is now 2:40 already, should I get them to record the narration simply saying “I like A; I like B; ….”, or to work on the script.

My thinking on the spot was that since I wanted them to produce a product as soon as possible, they had better just go ahead with the recording first.

This time the school technician had plugged in all the microphones and tested them beforehand, so although a couple of the mic’s were not working very well, overall, this was not a major problem. But after the children started, some of them spent too much time on their name in the first slide, leaving even less time for the recording. Then we found two children had just been posted to this group, and knew nothing because they had missed the earlier three sessions!

When some of the them had finished recording, I ran into another problem. When i was demonstrating the final step, converting the project file into a WMV video, i had assumed, like what is usually the case, that the computer would save to the default folder. I didn’t notice that the school’s computers were configured differently. So when some of the children had done the converting, the videos didn’t appear in my folder. This really gave me a scare. “Where are their completed videos?”

Then the bell rang, and almost one third of them hadn’t reached the final step. But you know in a primary school, you can’t keep the children behind, because the school buses will be waiting for them. So I just asked them to save their project file, without bothering to convert it.

Of course, we didn’t have any time to take the children’s pictures (which would be used in Story two), as we had planned.

When the children had left, we realised that the computers had configured to save their videos in C drive, and we couldn’t copy their files from C drive either. “Will their video file still be in C drive one week later?”

We (the student teachers and I) decided that we would abort their current attempt, and get them to start from scratch again next time.

Sigh!

Session 5

This is the plan:

This session will try to implement what we didn’t get to do last time.

1. Paul to show an example ‘long’ version that contains a sentence 2 for each picture (i.e., He is (smart)/ He can (catch bad people)/ He has (big eyes).

2. Tell SS that they have to fill out the story script first. Give out the worksheets. Ss start writing their script. Student teachers to help in groups. When they finish, they read it aloud to their group’s student teacher. Student teachers to check their pronunciation.

3. Paul to demonstrate, from scratch again. He will remind SS to save the final product to the right folder.

4. SS to work on their story at a computer.

5. Photo-taking in preparation for the next session.

This is what happened:

1. The microphones were in place.

2. The children arrived on time.

3. At the suggestion of the student teachers, I shortened the lead-in, by showing my narrated sample (long version, which means each “I like …” sentence would be followed by a one-sentence elaboration) right away.

4. I then introduced the script writing task. I avoided the feeling of repetition by saying that this time we would increase the difficulty. I encouraged them to work fast on the script writing by saying the earlier they finished writing the draft, the sooner they could start the recording. (It was apparent now that they liked doing the recording at a computer.)

5. I went through the language preparation quickly. I could have spent some time checking their ability (whether they were able to make proper sentences from my samples to justify their choices of favourite cartoon characters._) But I didn’t want to hold up the recording step.

6. They then started the script writing. A couple of boys finished quickly because they wanted to jump into the recording. Some children had difficulty completing the script either because they didn’t know how to write out the elaboration sentences or they didn’t know the words they wanted to use. The script writing had taken longer than I expected. It turned out to be slightly harder than I anticipated.

7. When almost everyone had finished, there were only 6 minutes left, not enough for me to do one more demonstration and for them to do the project from scratch again. I decided on the spot to leave the computer steps till next time, and used the remainng 5 minutes for taking individual photos of them, in  preparation for Story 2. I told the children next time, we would start the session with the computer steps right away.

8. So, although they still hadn’t finished their Story One, at least  they had their story script ready now.So  next time, we could start the computer procedures immediately.

Session 6

My objective for this session was so that the pupils would be able to finish producing their first story, so that they would be able to start the second story soon.

When we arrived at the computer room, I found a big carton of microphone headsets, which had not been attached the the computers yet.  I asked the 5 student teachers to plug in some of the headsets and to try them. They found that the recording function was not working, probably because of some setting problems. During this moment, the pupils were arriving from their original classrooms.

Sometimes it’s spirit-dampening having to wrestle with so many technical problems.

When Ms Chow, the cooperating teacher, arrived with the children, I told her about the problem. She left the room to look for help immediately. I then put the children into 5 groups, and had them practise reading aloud their own story to their small-group teacher.

While this was going on, a technician arrived, and tried to fix the problem. When the children had finished rehearsing their narration in groups, I brought them together, and demonstrated to them the whole process of using Photo Story 3 again, and this time including making a voice recording.

Then I got them to work on their computers. I was not sure whether the recording would work out fine. I asked them to give it a try, but they must remember to save their project file in case they needed to do the recording (again) next time.

AT the end of the session, almost of them had completed the project file.I had yet to check their project files to find out whether their recordings were OK or not.

Planning for the Second Story

I’ve been doing some brainstorming for the second story. I’ve visited the school’s website for ideas. And I’ve been thinking of some possible ideas, which include:

Ideas for my project
- a riddle about one of my classmates (take picture of one of them, and produce something)

-          Myself: one own picture taken in class: what I like to do with my good friends (photos of activities, eg., playing badminton)

-          Planning an itinerary: day 1, day 2, or just one-day, pictures of places in Hong Kong

-          A silly mistake: the monkey story

-          Interviewing a teacher and describing the teacher in the story: (See Mrs Van’s message: (http://www.lcps.edu.hk/subject/english/index.htm; photos to be provided by the teacher, and specially taken)

-          Verse speaking: Choose a poem, read it aloud accompanied by photos (e.g., ‘Weather’ by Meish Goldish)

-          ‘My favourite outing spots’: Ss talk about their favourite outing spots (e.g., Stanley, the Peak) and what they do there. Photos: popular outing destinations in Hong Kong.

-          ‘My favourite food’: Ss talk about their what they have or their favourite food for breakfast and dinner; what they have for lunch box and whether they like the food or not; and their favourite food and restaurants when they eat out. Photos: types of food.

-          ‘My favourite festival(s)’: SS talk about their favourite festival(s) and what they do on those festivals. Photos: the festivals

-          ‘My leisure activities’: SS talk about their leisure activities. Photos: Leisure activities, eg. Watching TV, playing badminton.

-          ‘My school day’: SS talk about a typical school day; eg., what they go to school, what time they arrive, what they do during recess, after lunch, etc. Photos: scenes of a typical day at the school

-          ‘My school’: Ss talk about the different parts and facilities of the school, eg., the playground, the learning centre, the tuck shop,, their favourite places, and what they do there. Photos: Different parts of the school.

-          ‘My teachers’. SS talk about their teachers they have, what subjects they teach, what the teachers do in their lessons. Photos: Their teachers and scenes of classroom teaching.

Up until today, I was beginning to settle for “My school day”, because it would be more manageable for the number of sessions remaining.

But after today’s session when the pupils had left, Ms Chow suggested using some family photos for the second story. The children’s parents would be thrilled when they later saw the stories produced by their children.

I discussed a couple of technical problems with Ms Chow, such as how the children would bring their digital photos to class. Ms Chow agreed to explore the possibilities.

One difficulty involves informing the parents. Another involves the children bringing the photos to class.

One easy solution would be for the children to send an email to themselves attaching the photos. When I polled the class at the start of today’s session, only half of them have an email account.

But the idea of using some family photos did cross my mind some time ago. So, now I need an idea which is (a) manageable for the remaining sessions, and (b) able to accomodate family photos if some of the children can make it.

Here is my idea at the moment:

“A place I like”

Students will choose a place in Hong Kong they like, and talk about it.

Details

1. Provide students with some possible places: Ocean Park, Disneyland, the Peak, Wetland Park, Ngong Ping, etc.

2. Pictures of these places can be found on Flickr and provided for the students.

3. If they have been to one of these places and have family photos on the visit, they can include these family photos in their story.

4. The ‘standard’ task, however, is to describe this place in four to five pictures, in the Present tense.

5. This task will involves some script writing.

Session 7

Background Consideration

1. Some of the pupils have done some recording of the narration. Some pupils have not started the recording. I want all of them to finish the recording and create their final story video in this session.

2. Now that I have decided on the topic for the second story (‘A place I like’), I need to start preparing them for it.

3. As they might finish their first story at different times, I will start the session with Preparation for the second story.

Session 7 Rundown

Post-session reflection:

Although still a bit rushed, the session went OK. I emphasised that this was the last chance to complete Story One.

The microphones were OK on the whole.  Overall, 25 of the children managed to produce the final story video.

I have had a listen to their stories. A couple of them had not included the narration. Most of them are OK, with the narration done. Some of them had the short narration version (just saying whom they like without justification). More than half had the justification. A few even tried to vary the sentence structure for the justification, like using “because …’.

As for the speechwork, it was generally OK. Some were fluent. Some were slightly struggling. None were totally incomprehensible.

But looking back, we did not spend much time on the delivery.

SESSION 8

In this session, I want them to finish preparing the script for the second story. But I want to keep up their motivation by playing the first stories by some of them, and I will start with this.

Session 8 Rundown