Reflections of a NECC Newbie and a Constructivist of Sorts

Although our luggage was lost in transit, our first day in San Antonio was a success!

We started our day at Gary Stager's, Constructivist Consortium
where we were reminded how important it was to allow our students to nourish their creative souls by encouraging project based constructive technology use in the classroom.

During this session we were introduced to the new Fablevision software, Animationish. It is a cartoon drawing application that allows the students to create animation videos. I can't wait to play with it more. There is a free trial on their website.

Another great application was Frames , it is a digital storytelling application that not only allows you to create photo stories, but it has blue screen technology, and you can even make claymation videos. Lisa and I are eager to use this with our kids next school year! It was so easy and fun too.
This was a great conference and it helped to get our creative teacher juices flowing. Check out the Constructivist Consortium Bookstore, with book recommendations that will help to foster your constructivist spirit. Also consider attending the Constructing Modern Knowledge Conference that is happening July 28th in New Hampshire.

Go out and create something beautiful. Smiles to you. -Christine

Harris Burdick Writing Project Video

The last assignment in my video class was to create a video that met the following requirements:

• The video should be 3 to 7 minutes long
• Include moving video that you have captured
• Can include still images
• Should have your voice as part of the narration

At the suggestion of Dr. Schneiderman , I folded this assignment into another project that I have been working on in my 5th grade classroom, called the Harris Burdick Writing Project.

Most recently my co-teacher Lisa Parisi and I, along with Brian Crosby, a fifth grade teacher from Nevada, discovered that we were 2nd place winners of the 2008 SIGTel Online Learning Award from ISTE for this collaborative project.

Below is the demo video I created for our poster session presentation and the video assignment that I'm submitting for TEAM.




I found the background music for my movie at Freeplaymusic.com. It was composed by Brian Cassel.

My Talking Head Video

My talking head talks about VoiceThread.