Katy Smalley

LITR 630
Digital Story Lesson

Standards
Common Core State Standards:
W.2.7- ARTICIULATE IN SHARED RESEARCH AND WRITING PROJECTS (E.G.
READ A NUMBER OF BOOKS ON A SINGLE TOPIC TO PRODUCE A REPORT)

ISTE 3. Research and information fluency

Students apply digital tools to gather, evaluate, and use information.
a. Plan strategies to guide inquiry
b. Locate, organize, analyze, evaluate, synthesize, and ethically use information from a
variety of sources and media
c. Evaluate and select information sources and digital tools based on the appropriateness
to specific tasks
d. Process data and report results

KTS:
6.1 Uses available technology to design and plan instruction.
6.2 Uses available technology to implement instruction that facilitates student learning.
6.5 Demonstrates ethical and legal use of technology

ILA 1.2 Candidates understand the historically shared knowledge of the profession and
changes over time in the perceptions of reading and writing development, processes, and
components.
ILA 2.2 Candidates use appropriate and varied instructional approaches, including those
that develop word recognition, language comprehension, strategic knowledge, and
readingwriting connections.
ILA 2.3 Candidates use a wide range of texts (e.g., narrative, expository, and poetry)
from traditional print, digital, and online resources.
ILA 3.1 Candidates understand types of assessments and their purposes, strengths, and
limitations.
ILA 5.1 Candidates design the physical environment to optimize students use of
traditional print, digital, and online resources in reading and writing instruction.

Grade Level
2nd grade students

Time Needed to Complete Assignment

50 minute lesson

Materials (ex computers, handouts, etc)

Student set of Chrome Books (checked out from school library)
SmartBoard
Research graphic organizer
Class Weebly Page
Adobe Spark

Learning Targets for the Lesson

I can synthesize information about my animal, and communicate the information with
others.
Students will be using Adobe Spark videos to communicate what they learned through
their research.

Procedures of the assignment (Steps)

This lesson is a part of a unit on Animal Research Projects. In previous
lessons students practiced how to analyze websites to determine its purpose and
credibility, and completed graphic organizers, filling out information about their
animal using information from credible websites found through search engines.
Students have also added their research onto our class Wiki page. In this lesson I
will be showing students how to communicate their research using Adobe Spark
videos, and walking students through the process of creating their own.
Gather students on the carpet. Im noticing that you are all working so hard on
your animal research! Im hearing a lot of really cool facts and seeing a lot of credible
websites. Pull up All About the Octopus on the SmartBoard through the class
Weebly page. I have been working on my research project too! I made a video to share
all of the information Ive found about octopuses. Show the Adobe Spark video. Isnt
that such a cool way to share our information? Can you imagine getting on our wiki
page at home, and showing your parents a cool video you made? Thats exactly what
were going to be working on today!
Have students go to their seats and log into a Chrome book with a partner,
and click on the Adobe Spark link from the Weebly page. Have students follow along
on their Chrome books, while modeling on the SmartBoard. We want to make a new
video, so click on the yellow plus sign first, then the red plus sign all the way on the
right that says video. Now were going to type in the name of our project. My video
was called All About the Octopus. You and your partner are going to type in the
name of your video right where the flashing cursor is. Make sure you are using the
name of your animal, so we know what its about! Give students a minute or so to
create the name of their video, encouraging struggling thinkers to use the example
All About the Octopus. Click the orange Next button, and then click on the right
arrow like I am. We are going to choose the Make Up My Own template for our story.
Click on that picture so we can get started! Were going to talk through this together,
so we dont need the video tutorial today, go ahead and click on the orange button that
says OK, Im ready!
Point with your mouse to the header at the top of the page. All the way over to
the right, there is the word Layout. Has everyone found that word? Great, click on it.
Now we have all of the choices we need to create each slide of our video! Observe
students working at their computers to be sure all partners are caught up, and
ready to move on.
 To make the first slide in our video, we are going to click on the very first
template. It says Fullscreen + thing Have students turn and talk about what that
might mean for the template of our slide. That means our picture is going to take up
the whole screen, and we can add our title on top of it. When you click on the grey plus
sign you have two choices, a video or a photo. Do we have a video yet? Nope, so we are
going to click photo. A new sidebar comes up on the right! Point to the little
magnifying glass that says, Find photos. Thats where we can get pictures that we
are allowed to use in our video. Photos that come up in this search have all been
tagged as Creative Commons- licensed. Type the name of your animal in the search
bar, and click on a picture you and your partner like. Look! It shows up right on our
first slide! Now were ready to add our title. Click on the grey plus sign right in the
middle of our slide and click on the word Text and type the title of your video!
Circulate and help groups as needed. Give me a thumbs up when youre ready
to make our next slide. Great! Everyone look at your graphic organizers. What do you
think we should put on our next slide? Have students talk with their table groups and
use pick sticks to allow a few students to share out. I think it will be easiest to follow
the same order as the graphic organizer, that way we can use it as a MAP to guide our
thinking. That means our next slide is going to be Classification.
Have students click on the plus sign at the bottom left corner to create a new
slide, and guide them through selecting a template that matches their purpose. We
are going to make sure we have a photo and text on every slide! Just like on our first
slide, add a photo and search using the magnifying glass. Assist students as needed,
being sure that students are choosing photos that are appropriate for an
informational research project. Now we need to add text. What text do you think we
would put on this page? Have students talk with their partners, then their table
groups. Call on one student from each table to share their thinking. Right, we are
going to use what we wrote on our graphic organizers for the text in our video!
Monitor as students work within their groups to add text. Help with technology
problems as they arise. Spelling and grammar was addressed in previous writing
conferences, encourage students to double check their spelling on their graphic
organizers. As students finish their slides, call partners out into the hall to record
their voice. Show students that they must hold down the microphone button the
whole time they are talking, and they need to keep their recording to 10 seconds.
Facilitate the groups practicing their recording before they record their voice onto
the slide.
*I anticipate it taking several lessons to get their slides completed and voices
recorded. Once the videos are completed, they will be uploaded to their animal page
on our class Wiki.

How students will be assessed

Students will be assessed based on their participation and active engagement, as

well as on their final video including a photo and the text/voice recording from their
graphic organizers.
Accommodations and modifications for students

Students will have the opportunity to reflect independently, in pairs, small groups, and in
whole group. Also, the classroom teacher will visit each group to take anecdotal notes
and to clear up misconceptions.