"Who Am I" A Fifth Grade Reflection

For the past several weeks our fifth graders have been creating their self portraits for their final year in Lower School, but not with pen and paper. The Art and Technology specialist joined forces having the fifth graders create iMovies that represent who they believe themselves to be. The "Who Am I" project come out of Margaret Synan-Russell's desire to integrate more technology into her Art classroom and my desire to support her.  I believe that using video is a great why for students to express themselves in a different way then they are normally asked to. Margaret and I had great hopes for this project, but we have both been blown away with how our students have put themselves out there for all to see. It was an amazing journey for the students to explore how they would visually show the world what their personality is.

First the students worked on their story board, planning out what they would like to film, who they would like to interview, what aspects of their lives were the most important to add to their film. Once they had a plan the filming began. The students we taught about basic film shots and terminology. The student used iPod touches to become the directors and cinematographers for each other. The filming seemed to take the longest. There was always the need for just one more shot. Finally with filming done it was time to move onto editing. This was were a great deal of time was spent. Editing is were the magic can happen. Some students used the green screen for the first time and some kept their movies simple with just the use of the Ken Burns effect. Each student created something that was unique and very much a representation of who the are. This has been a special project for the entire 5th grade team and I'm not sure how we are going to top it, but we will try.

Please follow the link to my playlist of these wonderful movies. Enjoy!

"Who Am I"