Students began the year with the My Three Words project. It is a powerful project that helps students and teacher get to know one another as well as a project that focuses on school year goals. Students film each other saying their three words and showing off their digital posters. The videos are combined to make a film that introduced family members to all the students at the grade level on Curriculum Night.
What's powerful about the project is that the project teaches multiple digital skills such as videotaping and creating a digital poster. The project initiates an important discussion about what's important to every learner, and the project builds on our year's initial focus on the importance of names--a focus forwarded by this terrific TED talk that spoke to the students.
Putting the film together and matching it with music gave me a lengthy opportunity to get to know each child via their video performance and words. In a short video each child demonstrated their personality as they performed their words and said their name. This was valuable.
As I watched the videos, I was reminded of the importance of this modern era skill--a performance skill displayed via video that includes clear speaking, actions that match words, originality, and authenticity. It takes courage to film yourself and share it with the whole class, however if you start honing that skill as a young person, it will be easier as you get older.
Making movies, even short movies, is a terrific brain exercise as you synthesize image and sound to make meaning. I'll certainly use this venue again as students continue to learn. The shared video venue, WeVideo, makes the process inviting and fairly easy to use. I know that students will enjoy making videos to show what they know with meaning and personality in the year ahead. I look forward to that.
