Reflection on the final project

My final project for this class was a project for French A students to create a digital story using movie maker. We started a unit on countries around the world and climate to go along with the students’ humanities classes.
Later on in the same unit, students individually performed in class as a television “weather man”. In order to do well in their authentic performance, students needed to know the vocabulary. The videos were meant to help students learn and practice the new vocabulary on weather.

My goal was to kill two birds with one stone:
-students learn their new vocabulary in their project.
-Students learn to use new tools (creative commons + movie maker) that they can/will use later for other presentations in French class.

Based on the students’ self-reflection after the project, they were proud of the outcome of this project. They felt that they had learned to use the new vocabulary, and even though we had trouble with the technology, they enjoyed learning to use the movie maker program. Overall, students were proud to have created a video and posted them on their individual Blogs (portfolios). Students can use each others’ videos to review the vocabulary for the unit.

What can I do to improve this project next year?
1) There were too many new skills and tools to learn at once. Images + text + voice recording + video editing. Who has time to proofread their French?
Next time, I would teach students how to search for original images on creative commons beforehand and for a simpler project. They could learn the true value of finding good visuals and giving credit to authors. Once it is time to work on the video, they already know where to go find their images...

2) For the movie maker project, I also need to review the steps to follow.
The organization and writing of the project should be separate from the actual making of the video (movie maker). As a team, students should write and organize the story (board) away from the computers. That will give them time to discuss the project as a group, share tasks, peer edit their work and make changes if necessary. Because 3 or 4 students worked on one project as a team, it made for some logistical nightmare if one student did not have his/her part on time. Students work at different pace, so it is better for each student to be assigned a specific individual task. For example: each student should complete their video: fall, winter, spring, summer. Once we have all 4 videos, we can complete the group’s video by putting it all together.

I will continue to use movie maker as I believe that it is a powerful tool for teaching and learning a foreign language. It provides opportunities for students to practice all skills (reading, writing, speaking and listening) in the target language. With more opportunities to use movie maker, students will get better at using the tool and will improve on their use of the target language.