Documentation+of+Planning


 * What should the students know (the content) and be able to do at the completion of the learning sequence of approximately 10-15 hours?**

As part of the unit students were required to develop their own rubric (see Collegiate activity session 3), which was used as the platform for marking student's digital stories. When marking these with students, we viewed digital stories together so I could watch the digital story with students and then talk to them explicitly about what was enjoyable about their digital story, and also offer some areas for improvement.




 * What prior knowledge and/or skills do students need?**

The early stages of this unit was dedicated to explicit teaching of some areas that students may have needed guidance with to successfully develop a digital story including: - Understanding what a digital story is, and the specific elements of a digital story - Polished skills in Imovie and Garageband to complete their own digital story (it was expected that after a semester in the 1:1 program that students had a good understanding of these programs, however there was specific techniques taught that were needed during this unit)


 * What teaching and learning activities will enable students to engage with and achieve the learning aims?**



These are the unit planners that were used to deliver the unit on digital stories. It should be noted some units were substituted to allow for the collegiate teaching activities. Once the explicit teaching of these sessions were completed, students were then giving time to collate all the elements required of their digital story. My focus in these sessions was to assist students on a needs basis as they so required.


 * How will the learning environment need to be changed or organised differently throughout the unit of work, to assist student learning and safety, logistical and/or student management issues?**

The team teaching learning space previously mentioned was ideal for students to write their digital stories. What it wasn't ideal for was the narration of digital stories, as students within close proximity would interfere with students nearby and create unwanted background noise in their recordings. Thankfully, empty classrooms, storerooms, breakout rooms and quiet spots outside made ideal places for students to narrate. They were also able to do this at home.

The opening of the concertina created a large floorspace for students to view the projector and be exposed to explicit teaching of Imovie and Garageband. They were able to sit on the floor and shadow the methods being used so they were creating their own practice product as the lesson went on. This was a really effective means of teaching these new skills to the students.


 * How will the learning activities enable you to monitor student learning and the effectiveness of your teaching?**

All students had a finished digital story that was their own piece of work about their own personal experiences. The proof of the pudding was in tasting it so to speak, as watching students digital stories allowed us to ascertain how well students had understood the teaching that had taken place. Did they have a suitable topic? Did their story contain all the elements of digital story? Did their music create a suitable emotion? Was their narration fluent and read clearly?

Naturally, during the unit the opportunities that arise to conference one on one with students were powerful in guiding students and their learning. Breaking down the task of creating a digital story into stages (composing text, collecting images, creating music, narrating, collating) allowed us to work with students that may have required extra assistance. Completing small warmup tasks (such as the figurative language warmup) also allowed students to be exposed to explicit teaching of skills needed outside working on their digital story, that they could then apply.


 * What assessment tasks will you use to tell you about what your students have learnt and the effectiveness of your teaching?**

In our learning portfolios some students chose to reflect on the process of digital stories. [|Adam's reflection on digital story]

anecdotal notes taken on student's understanding of elements of digital story