Last Lesson-Editing and Evaluation

Today, I finished my TIP project (at least the first part) at Jack Jouett Middle School. Students were correcting and reviewing some test concepts while I took each group back to the computer lab to finalize their videos and export them as movies. One group actually did export their video correctly and had everything completed yesterday, so I had four groups to work with today. As Deanine went to obtain another microphone, I was left to handout some tests to the students and get them ready to finish their editing.
I took each group back to the computer lab and went through the procedures about saving properly and how to add their sound and any additional transitions or other small details that were left unfinished from yesterday. All groups completed their revisions, then each time I walked them through the procedure to save their narration and background music correctly as well as how to export their entire file as a .wmv file for viewing. Then each group went back through their video once more to be sure that all was as they wanted it.
This process took a bit longer than I thought, leaving only about 15 minutes of class time to view the videos and fill out the rubrics. We really did not have much time to discuss or process them, and I would have liked to have this time back. However, due to the technical and logistical issues, I had to go with the setup as we had it. We did get to view all of the student videos. There were five groups and all but two students participated in the process. These two students were absent during two of the days and helped their respective groups, but were really not able to participate as much as they would have liked. One group even listed one student in the credits as "not here" (much for humorous effect). The groups did get some very creative ideas on film and all did show the use of a digital probe or sensor and a graph. Deanine commented on how they turned out to be a bit more creative than she had expected. However, I had hoped for a bit more of the science to be included in their presentations. Since I introduced this project with a CSI scenario, many of them tended to use this as their background story. While this can be a good idea for some, it was not the best for all of the groups. There were some parts of the stories that were very well done, but others that really focused too much on the creative interaction and not enough on the data and evidence. However, all groups did get a finished product even with the limited amount of time and a couple of technical glitches to work through. In the end, all students did fill out a rubric to evaluate their video and I collected these as they left class.
I plan to go over the videos later and then compute a grade based on their individual rubrics and my assessment of their group products. All groups did well, but none were ideal in their scope or execution. Overall, I think the project worked, but may need a few tweaks and perhaps a better introductory scenario to focus students on the data analysis task a bit better.
One group did a race between students that was measured by a motion sensor. This worked, but since they did not show enough of the details of the data, the audience was not able to really understand their final conclusion. Another group took the temperature of a sick person to confirm that they were ill. They did show the correct use of the temperature probe and included a live-action graph showing the change of the temperature as well as a re-scale of the graph. This gave me an idea for a future part of the rubric to include more details as to what I wanted to observe for data collection from each video. This process was helpful in determining what I can do to both streamline and focus this project for potential future use.
If Deanine has time in her schedule, I may go back in November to help students film their motion sensor vehicle experiments. I think this may provide a good test of how much they learned and how well it is retained from this project to the next.