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Online Fairy Tales (Primary Grades) Project Description To create an online fairy tale study, students can use the online brainstorming tool Popplet (www.popplet.com) along with the interactive voice and image tool VoiceThread (www.voicethread.com). Popplet can be used to map out characters, locations, and plot points of the story and students can gain an understanding how parts of the story are connected, and then illustrate key plot points. Once that is complete, students can use VoiceThread to arrange the images and record a voice over narration to allow their fairy tale to play like a narrated storybook, or to provide analysis of the story and its meaning. Throughout the process, students will develop brainstorming skills and the tools to identify relevant and interconnected components of a story. Before the Project • Research and Learning: Students should familiarize themselves as a class with one or

multiple fairy tales; in this lesson plan, we explore The 3 Little Pigs with the entire class, creating an online storybook in small groups. Students should start the project with a firm understanding of the terms character, setting, beginning, middle and end.

• Teachers can also prepare by creating groups for project work; if the class is exploring one fairy tale, each group can take on one part of the story for later assembly, or if groups each tackle the same (or different) fairy tale(s), they can make their own complete versions of the story. In our example, student groups each create their own version of The 3 Little Pigs.

• Technical and Media Setup: o Teachers should create a Popplet and VoiceThread account for each student group to

allow for a quicker login process, and for potential use in future years. Please note that on networked systems, there can be technical issues with multiple students using the same account (when one student accidentally logs out, all other students are also automatically logged out) so if possible, it’s best to create a class set of emails, or use school-assigned email addresses for individual use, and to create a subsequent class set of Popplet and Voicethread accounts. Teachers should retain the passwords of any Popplet account created by students for school use, for maintenance and supervision.

o Teachers should run through VoiceThread in advance, to become generally familiar with its capabilities and limitations and to be aware of the strengths and weaknesses of the tool. For example, students can upload images, videos, documents and PowerPoint presentations, then can record narration to accompany each slide. However, the length of the narration becomes the length of time each slide appears in the presentation. Students can also leave comments on eachothers’ presentations, but these comments (in text, video or voice recording) play/appear upon each slide, and lengthen the amount of time each slide remains on the screen. We recommend

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that teachers watch Voicethread’s video tutorials to gather ideas for how best to use Voicethread for this and other projects.

o Students and teachers should ensure that they have voice recording capabilities on their computers (sound cards and microphones), or if this is not available, should instead briefly test the phone recording application within Voicethread.

First Online Session • Teachers can start this session by brainstorming all the traits of a ‘good computer student’,

recording their answers using Popplet. Some of the topics covered could include: o Being gentle with computers; o Privacy – protecting one’s name, location, age, etc.; o Password protection; o Appropriate websites.

• Using their provided login information, students should log-in to Popplet. Teachers can lead a ‘how-to’ tutorial using a projector, asking students to take each step together as a class. You may also have to teach some students what a ‘double-click’ is or how to click and drag.

• Once students have a good understanding of how Popplet works, have them create a Settings popple and a Characters popple, and brainstorm all these elements of The 3 Little Pigs within the popples. Some students will be done far before others. Encourage those students to draw pictures in Popplet of the characters and play with the colors/sizes/text size of all their popples.

• Students should also try to make popples that connect the story in order of its events, so for The Three Little Pigs, it might read as Pigs Build Houses à Wolf Blows Down Straw House à Wolf Blows Down Stick House à Wolf Can’t Blow Down Brick House à Pigs Defeat Wolf.

• If students can’t figure out the beginning, middle and end on their own, the lesson can end with the teacher reviewing the story events on Popplet with enough time provided to allow students to copy down the information or to rephrase these events in their own words.

Second Online Session • The students can begin by logging into Popplet and looking at their Character, Setting, and

Story (beginning, middle and end) popples. • Using their Popplet brainstorms as a foundation, students can draw out the important scenes

using free drawing software such as Kidpix or Microsoft Paint. Alternately, students can draw scenes by hand and teachers can either scan their work or photograph it with a digital camera, uploading the files onto a flash drive to be transferred to each group’s computer.

• Teachers can help students determine which scenes should be drawn (ie. the picture where the wolf blows down the house of sticks), and while the total length and number of scenes is up to the teacher, no more than ten scenes is recommended. Pictures need to be completed before the voice-over can be added in VoiceThread.

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• Students can then write a short script to either narrate the story in their own words, or (if they can’t yet write) can practice what they want to say when each picture appears on the screen.

Third Online Session • Teachers can start this session by introducing Voicethread to the class, clicking on the

“create” button to start their projects, and uploading one of the students’ images to use as an example. After uploading media, there are five ways to comment that include: calling, video conferencing, voice audio recording, text-based and drawing. For narration purposes, assuming that there are microphones accessible, using “Voice audio recording” is the preferred option. Teachers should demonstrate how to record the voice-over to the image;

• When this is complete, students can upload all their photos or drawings to their Voicethreads and order them as they desire, with teacher support.

• The students can then find quiet places in the room or school (depending on computer and staff support availability) and record their voice-overs.

• Once students have completed their fairy tales, the class can take turns watching them online. It should be noted that to export a project there is a small cost (approximately $2-3 per project); however, online viewing remains free while the Voicethread account is open.

• To engage students in reflection after the project, ask them the following discussion questions: o Was Popplet and VoiceThread challenging to use? Why or why not? o What problems did you come across? How did you solve them? o How could you use Popplet / VoiceThread in the future? o What did you learn about storytelling from using Popplet and VoiceThread?

Prepared by: The Cinematheque Education Department, Classroom Facilitator Jocelyne Leszczynski and Vancouver School Board teacher Grace Yuen