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Tech Project - Spinning Acrostic



I was looking up different techniques for digital storytelling using PowerPoint when I came across this cool video onYouTube.  I liked the spinning effect and thought it could be used for an animated acrostic.

I talked a teacher friend of mine into doing it with her class (4th grade) during their colonial unit and they turned out pretty good (the ones that finished). The hardest part was getting the kids to pre-make the acrostic! If you click on the video above you will watch a 6 minute tutorial on how to make the effect happen (or you can click on THIS LINK to go directly to my YouTube video).

I tried something new with this class. Normally we go through all the steps together but I wanted to see if students could follow a detailed tutorial so I could just be there for support. I made a 9 minute video and told them that if they followed all the steps they could do this project. I had maybe a total of five students in the class who finished with little or no help from me. All the rest could not, or did not, want to follow the video tutorial. In hindsight I should have done the first part (saving and typing) whole group and then as students finished they would watch a shorter video on how to add the animations. I think 9 minutes was too long for many of the students and they didn't get the concept to pause the video after each section.

I did a similar tutorial with another class and changed it to a 2 minute video and the kids did much better with that (different project but the concept was the same).

Anyway….if you are looking for a slightly different take on a PowerPoint you might want to try this technique. It can be done in any subject area. This one modeled use in a Social Studies class but I've also done it with a science class using the word "Light."

Comments

Hi, I think I am in love with your modified 4 square graphic organizer. Do you find the students begin to use their own sentence starters as the year progresses? I teach second grade but this is so simple that I feel by the end of the year my 2nd graders could write an essay!
Eve Heaton said…
Thanks for the feed back! Yes, I have the kids change the transition words as the year progresses. When I meet with the good writers I teach them to change things around. The kids who struggle with writing I focus on just getting them to do basic things like indent, capitalization, etc.

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