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Ballet Historical Pictorial

We only have 2 weeks of school between Thanksgiving break and final exams which only gives us 5 class days. I had 1 day of NextGen training and needed 1 day for exam review, end of semester "clean-up" and time to present final project. Which gave us the perfect magic number of 3 days for a end-of-semester projects. Ballet 1-3 was studying The Nutcracker, Ballet 4 was studying Swan Lake, and Dance 1 & 2 were both wrapping up their ballet units. So I took one project idea and modified and differentiated for all 4 classes. Check it out....

BALLET HISTORICAL PICTORIAL
  • Dancers were assigned both a partner and topic. Ballet 4 had original dancers, choreographers, and composers of Swan Lake. Ballet 1-3 had original dancers, choreographers, and composers of Nutcracker as well as plot summary, characters, adaptations of the ballet. Dance 1 & 2 were assigned historical dancers that have or are currently making historical contributions to the world of ballet as dancers, choreographers, and/or teachers. 
  • I had created a Google Folder for all groups that included a Google Form for all of the required research questions as well as a Google Form for the script writing. (extra prep time=more efficient class days). Students took their topic and used one iPad to do the research and their partners iPad to write the notes in the Google Form. 
  • They used the app called Shadow Puppet Edu to search for images that related to their person/topic. They put the pictures in the order they wanted for the video. 
  • They used the Google Doc to write a script of their information along with their pictures. 
  • They then recorded their script right within the app as they also had control over the speed of the pictures and ability to re-record if they messed one on 1 slide. 
  • At the end, they copied the link to their Shadow Puppet and used the "Turn In app" I created that links to a Google Form for me. 
  • We shared them in class to extend the learning for everyone!
  • *SIDE NOTE: My co-taught dance class (with Paige Harvey) took on this assignment too. Which did mean 1:3 iPad to student ratio. In that case they used iPads for the research and app and had to take their notes and write their script on paper. Special shout out to Mrs. Harvey to be willing to take on 60 beginning dancers on a 3 day technology project with me!

Notes on the project...

  1. Help them and have the practice pronunciations of the people and ballet companies. Someone that did not know dance would probably enjoy them, however it gave me some giggles, eye rolls, and groans about pronunciations on the recording. Some were excellent projects but would feel bad about publicly sharing them for the dance world. :)
  2. Approve all pictures. Yes, some projects found pictures that would not actually be the person in question. Again, great project but not shareable :)
  3. Stress the review process before submitting. Some had great projects, but missed points for number of pictures, or not enough sentences, or even basics of forgetting a title or names. All of this was shown or reviewed BEFORE starting the project but could have used a refresh before they submit. 
  4. Some classes were louder than others which meant the recordings were harder to hear. 
  5. This app was a GREAT student friendly app that was so very easy for them to use. What I loved was that it gave image credits at the end without students doing anything. 
  6. This project was a great to way to integrate dance, history, writing, speech, and technology. Cross-curricular clean sweep!
38 projects were complete, no (present) student had a missing project and over 100 student participated. Here are a few great project examples!

What were the other classes up to?
To read about Jazz 4 and the Dance-Music-Chemistry Project click HERE!
To read about Dance & Media click HERE!

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