5th graders are recording narrations for their “Day of the Dead” altars created with Inspiration

Yesterday, I worked with the 5th grade Spanish teacher, Nicole Haleen, to help her students search and cite online images for their Day of the Dead (Día de Los Muertos) altars. They built their altar in Inspiration, as it allowed them to quickly create tiers in order to populate with images and text. Their three tiers represented what the person they were commemorating liked to eat, drink, and do.

After gathering and citing all the images, kids were told to write brief descriptions (in Spanish) for why they chose each image for their altar. To record their voices in Inspiration, students highlighted each image, went up to Tools in the menu bar, scrolled down to Insert video or sound and then over to Record sound. For this recording step, students were told to grab a pair of our Logitech USB microphone headsets. We previously used a different Logitech model that was not as kid-friendly, and the earpieces kept snapping off. Having a microphone headset is a huge advantage as they drastically cut down on ambient noise. Students will probably need to change their input/output sound settings in System Preferences. They will also probably need frequent reminders to do this.

Enjoyed an 8th grade poetry class. Eve let me share a sonnet I wrote in 1992…

I was in Eve Becker‘s room earlier, trying to figure out why the USB Snowball microphone wasn’t picking up her students’ voices as effectively as it should. I think the sound settings in System Preferences keep defaulting back to the built-in mic rather than the Snowball.

Eve likes to record class discussions with http://ustream.tv – so, if a student misses a class for any reason, they can stay in at lunch and watch a recording.

While fiddling with the preferences, I enjoyed Eve’s introduction of sonnets as part of their poetry unit. I piped in that I wrote a sonnet in college, and the kids humored me by listening.

I also learned a new term, enjambment, which means the continuation of a complete idea from one line or couplet to the next line or couplet without a pause. “Enjambment” comes from the French word for “to straddle.” Giddyup.

Here goes:

It’s often said that five are just too much,
And one should stop at three or even four.
My mother seemed to have that rabbit touch.
The rabbi said be fruitful; She had more.
I sometimes thing the Yuppies know what’s best.
With 2.3, it’s hard to go astray.
No fighting over who deserves the rest
Of pizza or the first who gets to play
The latest of Nintendo. Peace presides!
No squabbling over turns to watch TV,
Or who it was that first began the tides
Of war. The answer’s like to be, “Not me!”
And though it seems that best is 2.3,
I find I’m happy with our four plus me.