ALA Thursday Nov 11, 2004

GAGGLE

Today the group continued working on circuits with motors, batteries, christmas lights, and wires. As they were working on making some fun art that lit up or spun around, Gabe was teaching them how to solder two at a time. The students seemed very proud of themselves as they worked, realizing that they were actually working with electrical circuits and being able to make things run! One young woman had a lightbulb moment, where she asked Jonathon how to make the switches again. As He explained the process, the girl eyes began to light up and she actually finished the description of how to complete the circuit herself. Once she did that, her remark was "i used to hate science!!" and then she quickly focused on getting her motor and light circuit to work. This group has taken to each other very well, working hard on the projects and really enjoying each other as a whole. THey are very responsive to all the activities designed to get to know them, and one can see them jelling together as a group already. This makes working with them a lot of fun.

MURDER

Today the students were divided up into 5 groups, given the computers and the cameras, as well as play-doh and clay, and instructed to create a story using no words, no sound, and only the characters they could create from the clay medium. Aside from a few technical issues (computer freezing) the students took to this project well. They were engaged, and they worked hard to create a 2 minute film before the time was up. Interesting note - Jonathon provided boards for the students to work on, so that clay would not get on the glass tops of the work tables. All of the students made films that were flat. They used the boards not for a stand for their 3D clay creations, but created flat clay characters that lay on top of the board and were moved around to film. If given more time the kids might explore ways to make their creations more three-dimensional. They expressed an interest in working with the clay again, and also expressed interest in possibly seeing a film about animation and using puppets and clay ( we have a short film about the making of NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS that really shows stop motion and storyboarding well. it will be made available next week for the students.) This week looked really good compared to the non-engagement of last week's work. Jonathon is learning more how to facilitate free choice educational environments.

Jonathon