The Nano Push

The Nano Push
This project has really reminded me of how technology inherently is a network. One gadget leads to another new idea and then the next new gadget leads to another, and so on. I love it. My research started out as using Nanos to record students reading as a way to track and celebrate student progress. We’re still focused on using Nanos to track reading, however, I realized very quickly how excited and motivated the students became of their accomplishments and so I wanted to give them a DVD of their recordings for the end of the year that students could take home. Very soon, I decided to start using video to record memorable student activities, field trips, parties, etc to include on the DVD. So the goal soon became providing students with an end-of-year DVD that celebrated all their growth....academically, physically and socially.
Then I found out about the new Macs. They can actually record students reading while videotaping them! We have one of these in our library and I would like to get students reading their books into them so students can hear and see themselves tracking text, their intonation, etc. I still want to use Nanos so that students can plug in with their headphones and listen to themselves and their guided reading groups, however, I’d like to start using the new Macs and my camcorder to video them for the end-of-year DVD. I do feel that the Nanos have been a remarkable motivator for students as they are so wonderfully portable and fun for them to use.
The resources I’ve found and used for this projecct have simply been trying out the applications, such as garageband as a way to manage/store video and sound files. I’m pretty new at garageband so I’m taking a hands-on approach to figuring it out along with using the Start Learning team for support.