My students need a flip video camera and a video iPod to play the movies they make, such as an orientation video that new students can view on the iPod while being shown around the school.
My classroom is the computer lab. I will be working on this project with our school guidance counselor and a group of new second grade students. We are a preK-2 school, serving over 900 students including the local military post's children as well as the local students in our small rural community. Each year over 100 students relocate to our school, whether civilian or military. Many of our students are living at or near the poverty level, so moving to a new school can be one more traumatic experience in a short lifetime of traumatic experiences. Some of our students move here and have parents about to deploy to Iraq with the military, so they are not only facing a loss of their friends and old home, but also of having an absentee parent.
We are requesting a Flip Mino video camera (Mac compatible) and a refurbished video iPod so that our current group of new students can create a video tour of our school for their newly-arriving peers. The students will learn to set up a storyboard, record teachers and places around the school on the video camera, edit the video on the computer, and load the final project onto the iPod for viewing. The iPod will be kept in the front office and be checked out to new students as they arrive so that they can have a narrated tour of their new school. This project is intended to help our new students feel at home and to allow deployed parents to receive communication from their child's school while they are overseas.
While their parents are completing admission paperwork, a student will be requested from the new student's class to take their new friend on the iPod-guided video tour of the school so that they can become familiar with our building and their new teachers. In this way, the new student will arrive on their first day of class armed with at least one new friend and a working knowledge of our school and staff so that coming to school won't be such a scary experience. The video will include segments for each individual teacher and classroom as well as all the common areas of the school so that the new student can learn their way around our big building without disrupting classes. The videos may be sent to deployed parents, too, so they can be a part of the experience. The iPod format can be easily updated for new teachers and classrooms each school year. In addition, our students with deployed parents can create video greetings to their parents and other soldiers abroad to boost morale on both ends.
Your support will help our continuous flow of new PreKindergarten-Second grade students to learn their way around our school, to begin to feel a part of our community, and to feel more secure in their new situation. Deployed parents can also be emailed with a copy of the video podcasts so that they, too, are included in their child's new experience, as well as receiving video "postcards" from their child while they are overseas. Your support will benefit not only our mobile students, but also provide support to our soldiers overseas.
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