Sunday, November 15, 2015

A Flipped Lesson with Animoto

In a previous post, I had discussed my thoughts on flipping a classroom and then presented my first flipped lesson plan. That lesson was about learning a useful tool that can be used to flip a classroom. However, here is a lesson that's actually for those whom we'd traditionally call students.

It starts with this brief presentation on Animoto on Christmas-related vocabulary. The flipped lesson would be rather short and can be used for elementary school students in a region where Christmas is reasonably popular so that the largely American/Western version of Christmas in the slide show can be understood and juxtaposed with what the students already know. For example, those who celebrate the holiday in Haiti may find snow a new thing, while many students from Indonesia may only know about Christmas as a distant and exotic celebration. Thus, student body consideration is important here.

The lesson would go pretty simply: the students watch the video for homework and are told to note at least 3 new English vocabulary words. Next they bring them to school and the class makes a list of all words that were noted. The class sees if all words related to the topic of Christmas. For instance, "snow" does due to the time of year (in typical Western celebrations), however "art" (from slide 2) is not necessarily always part of the main topic. The video can be watched again to see if any word was missed from the teacher's target list. Also, the show can be re-watched and paused slide-by-slide with the words being identified within the photo. "Snow" may be easy, though "wreath" and "stocking"  may not be so obvious for new students. After the word/object identification a worksheet can be passed out with picture to word matching. This can be a race, either individual or group, with the first 3 finished to be awarded a prize.

    Performance Indicator - ESL.I.5-8.1.1.15:
    Students apply self-monitoring and self-correcting strategies for accurate language production
    and oral and written presentation, using established criteria for effective presentation of
    information.

    May Include - ESL.I.5-8.1.1.15.MI:
    Strategies such as referring to illustrations, asking questions, starting over, rephrasing, and
    exploring alternative ways of saying things (see full list here).

After the lesson, the teacher could give an overview of the Animoto online program and have the students choose their topic for which to create a presentation. They could use their own photos that they find or have already on their computer. There are also many stock photos available on Animoto to be used. The Christmas vocabulary lesson's presentation would serve as a basis.

To be included:
  1. a theme, meaning a presented topic and presentation graphical theme
  2. a title
  3. at least 5 pictures
  4. a caption with each picture
  5. all in English
  6. music
The above mentioned performance indicator further applied in that now students also produce their own information and possible also explore alternative ways of saying things. Additionally, as I had created a TedEd lesson on creating TedEd lessons, that very platform could be used to explain how to use Animoto as well. Thus, instead of a class overview of Animoto, the TedEd lesson could serve the same purpose and allow for more class-based activity time.

1 comment:

  1. So glad that your lesson includes having the students create their own photo stories. Having them share their creations would be a great motivation factor. They could even be shared on a class blog.
    Your idea of using TedEd for explaining how to use Animoto might work but you would have to have a goo video to start with. Another option would be to create a short video yourself using Screencastomatic.
    Great use of the tools to meet your L2 goals!

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