12 Hour Student Challenge
Challenge students with an authentic lesson on place and community by giving them a 12 hour window to build a story.
Send them out to record and upload, to their phones, real time photographs of a geographic location centered on a theme.
Their story challenge could be about issues or successes in their communities or at their school. It could even be a reflective piece showing how daily lives compare and contrast in two diverse geographic locations.
Setting up
- Students brainstorm, determining questions and issues to be covered during their "phone story". Students decide on a topic and geographic location.
- Students outline the structure of the collaborative story on a shared Google Doc http://docs.google.com
- Students team up and each team creates a collaborative Google "My Map" http://maps.google.com where they'll "Placemark" locations they'll cover. One student starts the map by clicking on "My Maps" while signed in to their Google Account. Then they click the link "Create new map", title the map and click on the "Collaborate" link to invite team members. Once team members can access the map they'll create "Placemarks" for the locations they'll visit.
- The teacher sets up a Picasa Web Album for the day of the class story "build" and chooses an email address for uploading pictures from the field. The "Settings" link in the upper right of the Picasa Web Album site allows a "secret word" in "Upload Photos by Email". Teacher shares the "secret word" with the class teams.
- Students can also podcast their day by downloading "recording" apps to their iPhone from the iTunes Store.
Practicing Digital Citizenship & Visual Literacy
Discuss with the class picture taking etiquette, school policies and responsible journalism. Provide students with photo releases if necessary. For powerful, meaningful and clear pictures go over photographic elements as outlined in this Arts Edge Lesson "Formal Visual Analysis: The Elements & Principles of Composition" by Jeremy Glatstein. Have students practice cell phone photography before the day of the story.
Students can also download iPhone web applications that allow editing of their photographs before upload. ("See Photography on the iPhone" ALI Story)
From Dawn to Dusk
Students, teachers and community members can watch as the time stamped photographs and captions appear in the class Picasa Web album. Students can follow the Google Docs outline they created via iPhones and stay in touch with the other team members via text messaging. Students should note and geotag each picture location.
Reflection & Evaluation
Once the story is finished, students visit the outcome via Picasa slide show in class or online. The story's photographs can be downloaded to create an edited iMovie with sound.
With free iPhone apps such as Animoto Videos by RightSpright students can create and share Animotos of the story. They also can add voice recordings and natural sound captured in the field via free recoding apps such the iTalk Recorder from Griffin Technology. These iPhone Applications are available in the iTunes Store
Students share reflections and questions from their experience:
- What questions do students have after the experience?
- What have students learned about their community?
- What have students learned about working in a team?
- What things do they see in the community that need their help?
- How does this story of their community relate to the content and curriculum in their classes?
- Why is their story important?
Story's End
Other ideas for 12 hours phone stories:
Day in the life of my school
Day in the life of our footprint on Earth
The best in our community
Science as it happens from the field
The geography of my community
Economic indicators "of the time" in my community
First published on Apr 17, 2009.
