YOU ARE HERE >
Main > Teacher Resources > JCC Survey Course
Dora Leland
08
Project
Summary
1. General Overview of the Proposed
Project:
The Civil War in Pictures: Students will be
researching various aspects of the Civil War through the use of
photos. Students will be assigned a specific aspect of the Civil War
to research. (ie; medicine; children at war; union victories; union
defeats etc.) In groups of two, they will search online data bases
for actual Civil War photos and memorabilia that are relevant to
their topic. They will then create a digital portfolio of the
pictures collected. Portfolios will be used to create a movie about
their aspect of the Civil War. Students will use the Moviemaker
program to edit and create their movie. In addition, they will add
audio commentary to explain the pictures in their movie.
2. Clear Purpose and Objective:
The purpose of the assignment is to have
students learn the skill of creating a digital collection as well as
be able to access and use the collection to create an original
project. Students will also be expected to extensively research an
aspect of the Civil War and share it via a movie with their
classmates.
3. Stakeholders: grade level, who will
benefit, who will participate in this project.
The grade level included in this topic is 7th
grade students in my Social Studies classes. All classes will
complete this project.
4. U.S. History Content Area
The content of this project is American
History; Civil War Era
5. Outline Describing Content
I. Intro to MS Moviemaker
A. Setting up digital files
B. Organizing files into a
movie
C. Saving/ editing
II. Research
A. Internet research
B. Archive Research (scanning
photos, documents, etc.)
III. Creating the Movie
A. Setting up visual
information
B. Adding Audio commentary
C. Editing Movie
IV. Presentation of Movie
A. Presentation of movie
B. Critique of class movies
6. Software to be used, internet
materials, contacts, etc.
Software used is: MS Moviemaker; MS word.
Civil War homepage; toolboxpro.org (to access worksheets and
organizers)
7. Level of Student Involvement
Student involvement will be
high throughout the project. Basically this is a student-centered
project in which I plan to facilitate and monitor their progress.
8. Evaluation process (include students
when possible)
Students will be evaluated using a grading
rubric that will be explained to students prior to beginning the
project. All aspects of the project will be evaluated; including the
research, movie, presentation and critique of other projects.
9. Timeline: how you envision the
project being carried out between start up and conclusion
This project should take approx. 2 weeks to
complete. I plan on using 1-2 days to introduce the moviemaker
software; 1 week for research; 2-3 days for project creation and 2
days for presentations.
Final
Project Reflection
Dora Leland
Horseheads Middle School
Social Studies-7
The Civil War in Pictures project
was immensely successful and rewarding in many ways. The most
rewarding aspect of the project was that it brought the Civil War
alive for students. Through viewing many of the photographs of
soldiers, leaders and battle sites, students could actually
visualize what the war was like. Some of the photos were so
engrossing that I think students could actually empathize with how
the subjects were feeling. Unlike other topics we have studied this
year, the Civil War is the first where I could show students live
photographs of events and people involved. With this generation of
students, being so visually-oriented and technologically savvy, it
is imperative enable them to connect to a topic in that manner.
I think this lesson was also
rewarding in that it was in many ways self-motivating for the
students. They loved the movie-maker program. It has many options
that give students control over what their movie project would look
and sound like. In other words, it has many “gadgets” for the
students to play with. I never really had to push students to get to
work or refocus them to get on task.
Throughout the entire project, I
also had mini class lessons on the Civil War. I would assign
workbook pages or reading assignments on various topics on the Civil
War so that the students would have a sufficient knowledge base in
which to create their project. The students could use information
from the mini lessons and incorporate it into their movies.
Before actually beginning the
project, I have had in the past, technology help from our local
BOCES. I had a technology expert come into my classes to give
students lessons on how to use movie maker, how and when to create
digital files, troubleshooting techniques when things went wrong
etc. This was priceless to me in getting students the technological
information and know-how. It was also useful to the students because
the technology specialist walked students through the program,
answering questions as they came up. I was also able to have her
stay for almost the entire duration of the project to assist me when
technical problems arose- and they did.
I think in the future though, I would tighten
the structure of the assignment so that the students did not get
lost in playing with the program and then have to scramble to get
the assignment completed. In the beginning, I think I may have given
the students too much freedom and not enough parameters in setting
up the movie. What might be helpful is to create a chronological
checklist to use in the future that students would have to complete
each step of the way. In order to get to the moviemaker program,
they would have to show me their documented digital
file of photos. Then they would have to script each frame before
they went into the narration part of the program.
The biggest problem I faced in
this project was getting students to wrap it up and turn in a
completed movie. Once students got into the moviemaker program, they
often got caught up in playing too much with the features, such as
slide transitions and slide emphasis that time would run out and
they would not get the entire project completed. In all, the project
took a week longer than I had anticipated because I felt the need to
extend the lesson to allow students class time to finish since not
all students have computer access at home and many students’
schedules do not allow for study hall time. In the future, I think I
would create a time-specific schedule that I would present to
students before they begin the project. I could then
deal with students who fall behind in a more efficient manner.
Overall, I was very pleased with the outcome
of the project. Student movies were, for the most part, very good. I
held a class a whole class discussion on how the project went for
the students. They shared what went well and what was difficult. I
did learn that students needed more direction on not how to find
photos, but how to discriminate between relevant photos and
irrelevant photos. Students also needed more direction on how to
incorporate photos they find into a meaningful project. In the
future, I would make a greater effort to connect the content with
the technology.
The Civil War in
Pictures
Moviemaker
Assignment
The Civil War was the first “modern war”, in which
photographs of people and events were available to the public. You
are to create a civil war “movie” using the moviemaker program
loaded on the computer. Use the procedure below to guide you through
the process.
1.
You are to choose a topic related to the civil war from the list on
the back of this sheet.
2.
Once you have your topic, you are to collect a series of pictures
that relate to your topic. You will get these pictures from THREE
websites. All three are located in the bookmarks area of my school
website. To get there, you must:
a.
Go to :
www.sctboces.org
b.
Click on “districts”
c.
Click on “Horseheads”
d.
Click on schools- go to “Middle”
e.
Click on Classroom Pages- go to “Mrs. Leland’s Classroom”
f.
Click on “Bookmarks” There you will find THREE Civil War
websites that have fantastic pictures of the Civil War.
3.
You should browse each site, looking for pictures that relate to
your topic. Once you have chosen a picture, you are to save the
picture to your H: Drive.
4.
For 10 of your pictures, you are to write a short
narration, explaining what the picture is of and ho it is relevant
to your topic.. Before you can get on the moviemaker program, I must
see the 10 nations. Use the worksheet on the back to complete this.
Once you have saved 20 pictures to your H: Drive, you are to
open up the moviemaker program and follow the
directions on making your movie.
Civil War
Topics: (Choose ONE)
·
Comparing
Presidents: (Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis)
·
Comparing
Generals: (Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee)
·
Confederate Generals
·
Union
Generals
·
Battle of
Gettysburg
·
Causes of
the War (Slavery, Sectionalism…)
·
African
Americans in the War
·
Women in
the War
·
Prison
Camps and Treatment of Prisoners
·
War in
the West
·
War in
the East
·
Medical
Care in the War (Hospitals, medicines, diseases
Narration of Pictures:
Leland Project
Reflection in Word
|