BH-BL fourth-graders fare well in national video contest
A fourth-grade classroom at Pashley Elementary School in Burnt Hills will get a technological upgrade, thanks to the efforts of students who entered a national video contest sponsored by eInstruction this winter.
Their video, The Wizard of E, placed in the top five and scored them $2,500 worth of technological gadgets.
`It was pretty great to be one of the top videos. When we heard the news, everyone was happy and screaming and excited, knowing we could win, and we also knew we were up against challenging videos,` said Marco LaTorre.
Students were surprised by their video’s success because they didn’t expect to complete the video in time. Roger Kopa, their teacher, warned them from the beginning that the video project was more about learning the computer skills, and finishing by deadline would just be a bonus.
`I actually saw it [the contest] a year ago and thought it was too much work, but I stumbled across it again and thought we’d try it. We only had a week and a half to do it,` said Kopa. `We had cameras rolling almost all day long for three days and chopped three hours of footage down to two and a half minutes, the time limit.`
The class brainstormed ideas and Kopa worked to make words fit music from `The Wizard of Oz.` Annie Pinkerton was Dorothy for Halloween and also Dorothy in the video. She said the video’s concept was interesting.
`We thought we could use my costume and it was a pretty good theme. It was like a retro theme, going back in time of what technology was like in the olden days to what it’s like now,` said Pinkerton.
The skills and programs students learned to use for the contest will come in handy for future class projects, which was one of the main reasons Kopa decided to enter.
`They learned how to film and edit a video using a digital camcorder, green screen software and Windows Movie Maker. They also learned how to record separate sound files that were used in place of the original video sound using Audacity, a free sound editing software,` said Kopa.
Kopa said he was amazed at how quickly his students absorbed everything they were learning and it has allowed them to jump right into a collaborative project with a first-grade class.
`We’re going to create digital read-along books for the first grade classes to use. This would give our class a great opportunity to practice reading with expression and for a future audience, and at the same time it would give the first-grade children a product they could use,` said Kopa.
The students also want to write and illustrate their own electronic books using their new skills and equipment.
The prize money will go toward various items, including remote-like `clickers` that allow students to do multiple-choice work. Kopa will get a board that attaches to a computer and is projected on a screen so that he can walk around the room and write on it or have students pass it around to work on. He said these items will benefit the entire school because his class plans to share them.
Exposing his students to modern technology is important to Kopa. He spends time with them in the computer lab and also brings the laptop cart to the classroom. He said the students learn quickly because they teach one another what they know.
`The ways that kids today find, collect and synthesize information is very different than it was just 10 or 15 years ago,` Kopa said. `Many of the jobs these children will have in the future will involve collaborating with people that are located around the globe. It’s important that children become comfortable with how technology works and understand what it can, and can’t, do to make their lives more efficient.`
EInstruction is an education technology company. This was its third annual Classroom Makeover Video Contest.
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