iLife Learning

As a K-8 teacher-librarian who collaborates with classroom teachers, I am interested in implementing Mac's iLife Suite in student learning activities. If you use iMovie, iPhoto, iDVD, iWeb, or Garage Band, please share!

Tags: iLife

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Permalink Reply by Kathy on August 14, 2008 at 7:30pm

Hi!
My 7th and 8th grade students have been learning to use iLife as well as some animation programs. Last year the 8th graders completed a Holocaust project with a documentary as their final. They were limited to 10 minutes, had to include an interview of an expert on the topic, and had to create their own music. Some of them turned out pretty good. My students who are Windows people have turned into Mac folk, especially after working with Garageband. There's just not much for Windows out there like GB.
Kathy

Permalink Reply by Leslie Witten on August 15, 2008 at 12:32pm

That sounds like an impressive learning experience for your students, Kathy! I am curious...
...What equipment did you use?
...Were you already familiar with how to use the iLife applications or was this your first project?
...Did you tackle this on your own or did you have additional professional help?
...How many computers did you have available to your students and where were they located?
...About how long did it take for your students to complete the project?
...With whom did you share the presentations? Who was the intended audience?

I have a 7th grade teacher who would probably love to apply this type of learning experience to her unit on Manzanar. She and I both are very new to using iLife and eager as well! I'd appreciate any additional info you might be able to pass on to figure out the details of such a project.

Thanks for the reply...and the support!

Permalink Reply by Kathy on August 16, 2008 at 9:16pm

Equipment: Canon camcorder, imac computers (6 in my classroom), Samson C01U USB microphone (these microphones are great! They're very professional sounding quality-wise, plug right into the computer's usb port, and at least on the Macs, don't need any software install.)

I've been using Macs for quite awhile and had made some of my own movies, music, slideshows, etc. But many of the students were not Mac users. A few had made movies with MovieMaker.

When I first started using iMovie, I just learned it through trial and error. There are some good books out there now that really give great tips. One is called The Macintosh iLife 08 by Jim Heid. It even has some sample lesson plans and project ideas for K-12. I also got good ideas from the iMovie Missing Manual series by David Pogue.

If the students know the programs, you can finish a research project like what we did in about 3-4 weeks. We did a pretty in depth study, so it would be easy to shorten or lengthen depending on how much time you wanted to spend. The students presented their films and research to our class, and I had told them the films would be posted online. I'm also planning to submit a few of the better films to a contest sponsored by one of our local colleges. We also presented some of the films to our PTA when they had a kind of celebrate student achievement night. We set up several tv's, computers, etc. and had one film playing on each all around the cafeteria. I'm thinking about eventually posting them to something like TeacherTube for a broader audience.

Permalink Reply by Shavon Davis-Louis on September 6, 2008 at 7:19am

Below I have list a few of things that my 4th grade class did last year using iLife:
* podcast on various subject areas (the Amazon, global warming, Aztec, etc)
* webquest & web sites using iWeb (Incan, digestive system, genes, food webs, etc)
* photo books to teach the K & 1 fluency, phonemic awareness, and to help the librarian enter the scholastic bookfair (our librarian has won the contest 3 times)
* book talks using iMovie and/or garageband
* iWeb to blog
* garageband to create songs written about subject matter ( one topic was the ice age)
* News announcements, commercials - iMovie
* Animated comics using iMovie and Comic Life(it isn't a iLife product but fairly inexpensive)

Good luck! The possibilities are endless

Permalink Reply by Jennifer Schneider on January 6, 2009 at 12:09pm

i would be interested how you did your book talks? I am also using imovie 08 for the first time in the classroom and would like some ideas for simple projects to start with.

Permalink Reply by Obe Hostetter on October 11, 2008 at 2:17pm

We teach our teachers to use Iphoto to collect their photos throughout the year. Then at the end of the year, many elementary teachers use Imovie and IDVD to create movies of their students with non-copyrighted music. The parents and students love this gift.

Permalink Reply by Lauraw on November 30, 2008 at 2:50am

Hi Leslie,
I realise this topic was started a couple of months ago but in case you still are interested - Mac have just released a specifically education version of iLife and iWork. From what I have read these education versions have tutorials on how to use the programs in a specifically educational context. There is also a short Quicktime file you can download from the Mac website of how one class used both iLife and iWork to report and analyse data from a field trip.

Here is the link

Permalink Reply by Leslie Witten on November 30, 2008 at 9:45pm

Thanks, Laura! I will check out the links & tutorials. How do you use iLife in your profession? BTW - adorable baby!

Permalink Reply by Lauraw on December 1, 2008 at 4:32pm

Well, I hope to :) I'm am yet to start my teaching career but when I do I hope I have the privileged of working in a school that has the resources for me to do so.

I have used Pages, Keynote and Numbers during my education (BA - English Lit. and Grad. Dip Ed.). I love using these programs because they are so intuitive - I don't ever think, "well that was hard" or "couldn't they of made that easier?" - everything just seems to come together. I also made a rather complex marks/grading template for my husband (he is a music teacher).

Thank you, we can't even go to the shops without someone telling him how gorgeous he is... his Nannie (MiL) tells him constantly that he is "so advanced" :)

Permalink Reply by Leslie Witten on December 2, 2008 at 9:34pm

Well of course he is...he has educators for parents!!! Good luck with mommyhood and your career in education as well! I am also a mother (6 yr old girl, 7 mo. old baby boy) as well as a former music teacher, and now a credentialed elementary classroom teacher who has been employed as a K-8 school librarian for the last 5 years in Los Angeles. My passion is using technology to teach information literacy, to motivate/inspire kids, and connect & create in my own life. I just love Classroom 2.0 and meeting other educators around the globe; having so much support is awesome. Please let me know if there is anything I can do for you!

Permalink Reply by Chris Miraglia on December 13, 2008 at 8:30am

Leslie,

I teach 8th grade US History and utilize the same programs. I have taught my students how to use Garage Band for podcast (most of them like the idea of being able to produce) that are published on a weekly basis about our topic of study. The podcast then are uploaded to my various classroom blogs http://cmiraglia.edublogs.org so that students can review. iPhoto is used to download images for presentations and iMovie is used to produce history related movies in class. For example, this next week my students will be creating a iMovie about what they feel is the most important amendment in the Bill of Rights or out of the 27 amendments. Last year my students created web sites that related to the topic of slavery. For each of these applications it is important to guide the students through the applications first, then let them experiment. The students are usually quick to learn.

Chris

Permalink Reply by Leslie Witten on December 14, 2008 at 12:19pm

Great ideas Chris! How do you handle privacy issues with the students. For example, do they use their names? What about images of the kids? Are the websites and especially your blogs open to the public?

My school is gripped with fear about these issues. How do you strike a balance b/t protecting their privacy and engaging in web 2.0/iLife activities?

Leslie