Collegiate+Classroom+Activity+1


 * Collegiate Classroom Activity Record**


 * Lesson 1**

- Effective instruction and clear expectations of students at beginning of lesson. - Having a reflection time where students articulate their learning.
 * Professional Focus for the Activity -**


 * Weekly Learning Focus** - Creating a Digital Story

To be able to choose suitable music to support the main idea in my digital story.
 * Lesson Objective -**

All - can identify the 'main idea' of their digital story Some - are beginning to create a track of music that supports the main idea of their digital story. Few - have completed a suitable piece of music to support the main idea of their digital story.
 * Success Criteria** -


 * Outline of Planned Learning Activity**

Students have been writing scripts for their digital stories and are at a stage where they are to begin compiling their media in Imovie. Part of this compiling will be to create a music track in Garageband that supports the 'main idea' in their story.Students understand from previous analysis of digital stories that music plays a part in creating emotion in a digital story. To demonstrate this point I will begin the lesson by playing students a brief digital story that has the same content except for changing the backing track. Students will then be asked to reflect after listening to the digital stories 'What is the main idea in the digital story you are watching?', 'What emotions does it convey to you?' and 'How does the music influence your belief?'
 * Whole Class Introduction -**

Moving into the independent task for the session, Students will be creating a 'backing track' for their digital story that supports the main idea of their script. To do this, students need to know the main idea in their digital story script in as well as be sure of the kind of emotion they are trying to convey. I will ask some students to share the 'main idea' in their digital story in 20 words or less and ask them to explain the sort of emotion that is coupled with this. (I.e Sad, happy, anger, joy etc) This is important as students need to be very clear on what they are trying to convey before they can create their music track.

Before setting students off to work, I will give students a brief refresher in Garageband in the following areas: - saving their project appropriately - adding music clips to their track - using criteria to choose suitable clips - exporting track as an Mp3 file

Students will be given independent time to create a backing track for their digital story. During this time it is really important that I rove and chat to all students to ensure they understand the main idea of their story and that they are aware of the sort of music they are trying to create (i.e Happy, Sad, Angry). It is likely most students will not finish this task in the allotted time, which makes their understanding even more important as they will be completing the task at home over the course of the weekend. Once students successfully understand their main idea and the style of music they need to create to support it, they will be able to complete the remainder of this task independently at home.
 * Independent Task -**

The sort of questions I will use to prompt students during this session will include: - What is the main idea of your digital story? - How does you digital story make you feel? - How do you want someone who reads your digital story to feel? - What emotion do you need to convey in your music to achieve this?

At the end of the session I will bring the students back as a whole group. Some students to share their work and explain why they have chosen the music they have created. Sharing will also be based on how students created their music tracks. We will have a discussion based on the question 'Is it important to have music in your digital story?' to support student's understanding of music being an important aspect of creating emotion in a digital story which supports the main idea.
 * Reflection -**

I feel the students really understood this concept very well, in large because they were able to view the three different tracks which catered for a wide range of learners. They could see it, hear it and be told about it all at the same time. It is all well and good to say to students 'emotive music changes the way you perceive a story now go and add some emotion to your digital story' and expect them to do it, but to prove it to them visually was powerful and effective.
 * REFLECTION ON MY TEACHING -**

The students have become confident with the use of a variety of software. They can peer teach and problem solve when they have issues on the laptops. So when giving brief instructions on the features of garageband, this was something I knew students cold fallback onto if needed. I also knew some had experience with garageband previously as well.

During share time, one student shared their track which had become a little too monumental to be considered relevant to their digital story. While their track at that time hadn't quite displayed exactly the emotion they intended, I'm not convinced this wasn't because they had become distracted with some of the more unique sounds available to them, and not because they didn't understand what was required.

Upon listening to all of the digital stories it was clear the vast majority of students had succeeded in making a track relevant to their digital story. One student didn't; he had compiled a digital story about how music is a big part of his life. He chose to add clips of his favourite songs, which while makes sense and was effective, wasn't consulted about or part of the design brief.