Office of Instructional Technology

Multi-disciplinary Inquiry-based Projects for the 21st Century Collaborative Classroom

iSite: Digital Documentaries to Engage Students in all Content Areas

Pacing

I. Preparing to Start

Have parents sign the DOE consent form

Distribute and collect the WWW consent form

Familiarize yourself with available resources

Research Internet sites for your students to use
Enlist school support:

• Computer teacher- can support students with research, saving and importing graphics, audio, and video, creating the movie

II. Starting the Project

Introduce the project

Discuss the focussing question

Show sample documentaries to the class

Discuss the IAUP with students

Teach the students about copyright law

Divide students up into research groups of 2-5 with specific topics of study related to units of study

Students will decide on a topic for their project

III.Creating a Storyboard and Researching Information

Decide on a storyboard format you will have your students use
Have students research their topic using links you have gathered and acumulated on a TrackStar, Portaportal, Wiki, Website, Blog, etc.
Demonstrate how to download information - images, audio, video

IV. Project Research

Establish cooperative groups and group rules
Assign research topics to each group
Students conduct research and download resources

Students will find and place appropriate copyright friendly pictures from the Internet, original digital photos (or hand drawn and scanned) into their text.

Digital Documentaries will be shared with other students, parents, teachers, and relatives from around the world

Suggested Timeline in Creating the Digital Documentary

• Week 1: Project Overview, Establishing Groups, and Choosing Topics
• Week 2: Researching the topic, Gathering Information, Collecting Resources
• Week 3: Creating the storyboard and Developing the narrative based on research
• Week 4: Beginning the digital documentary
• Week 5: Recording narration, Importing Resources
• Week 6: Completing and editing the digital documentary