Co-teaching with Mrs. Julie Fields
All About Bees by Shawn Churchill
Planning
Mrs. Fields is a 3rd-6th grade Special Education teacher that teaches in a self-contained classroom. Her students have Autism, Down Syndrome, emotional behavior disorders, and many are low readers. She wanted her students to produce something on the iPad to showcase their knowledge of bees. Using iMovie and Read & Write for iPad, we made it happen!
Learning About Bees
Julie had her students learn about Honeybees. They read books and gathered information on the internet. When they found something interesting, Mrs. Fields wrote it on the board.
Bee Facts
The students came up with 9-10 facts that they wanted to include in their iMovie.
Bee Pictures
While Julie read, I found Bee pictures and loaded pictures on their Camera roll. Students had the choice to add their own pictures too but this helped expedite the process.
Modeling
My Bee iMovie Example!
To start the lesson, I showed an example of a Bee iMovie. This initiated excitement. Now, they were ready to learn how to make one on their own!
All about bees!
Using iMovie and Read & Write for iPad
The students brought their iPads over to the rug and I did a very thorough demo of iMovie. For her struggling readers and writers, we added the Read & Write keyboard to the iPad to help them write complete sentences. Mrs. Fields and her two instructional assistants learned too as I explained how to add pictures, text, music, and audio to an iMovie. Extreme patience was necessary to make this project come to fruition. We had emotional meltdowns and I got sneezed on!
Assistive Technology
Students enjoyed adding their voice to their iMovie. For students that had trouble getting their ideas across in writing, this was a great feature!
Read and Write for iPad
Read and Write for iPad was great for this project because it allows the students extra help while typing their captions. I demonstrated how the app worked for Julie so can teach her students how to use it. Click here to watch short tutorial. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRpD3hnniSY
Mrs. Fisher
Mrs. Fisher, instructional assistant, is very tech savvy! She picked up quickly how to use iMovie and helped the other students when they got frustrated.
Reflection
How did the lesson go?
After most students completed their iMovie (it was a three-day project), the students and teachers invited me back to show off their work. They were so proud! Each student airplayed their work and we applauded after each example was shown. I helped Mrs. Fields upload all the assignments to Canvas to add to their online digital portfolio. Coincidentally, Mrs. Fields had Special Ed case conferences that afternoon with parents and administrators so she was able to show the parents what they had created. I also helped Mrs. Fields upload one video to Youtube so she could quickly text the video link to a parent.
Overall, Mrs. Fields was surprised her students could create and manipulate the iPad so well. With step by step directions, patience, and careful planning, we made it happen! Our next project is to turn iMovies into QR codes so we can make an interactive bulletin board outside her room!
Sammy's Bee Movie: The Life of a Bee!
Bee Movie