Picture This - Stars over Hoke /Imaginarse - Estrellas sobre de Hoke

Picture This – Stars Over Hoke -
Imaginarse - Estrellas sobre de Hoke

Overview:
Imagine that you are eleven years old. You and your family have moved over 3,000 miles to your new home in another country where you know no one. Monday morning you start at a new school. You are being placed in the 6th grade but you are worried because you missed most of the 4th & 5th grades. What if you can’t do the work? What if no one speaks Spanish? You don’t speak any English. You are hoping you might find a student that speaks Spanish and maybe become a friend.

A version of this scenario plays out thousands of time a year as more students with limited language skills enroll in US schools. In our school, our ESL (English as a Second Language) population has increased dramatically in just the last few years to about 80 students this year. Our ESL students are predominately Hispanic arriving not only from Mexico, but Central and South America and Latin Caribbean countries. The families come for work in primarily agricultural jobs so for many, the chance for their children to get a quality education is a high priority.

Now picture this same child proudly being able to participate in class, sharing favorite pictures of family, foods, celebrations and culture before even becoming fluent in the second language. Now instead of a withdrawn child, he is able to share information and perhaps teach his peers vocabulary and a glimpse of life beyond their classroom.

Lesson summary:
My grant request is to enable my middle school ESL students to better communicate and participate in classes by using digital cameras and software to publish their own personal bilingual dictionaries, story books and Power Point presentations for the SMART Boards in their classes.

Lesson plans would incorporate 6th, 7th and 8th grade state standard course of study objectives as well as the current WIDA standards in the areas of language arts, math, science, social studies and technology. The cross curriculum nature of the ongoing projects will further support and enhance vocabulary and fluency as the students begin with functional language needs expanding to cover core class projects. While this request is primarily for my ESL students, I can envision this project expanding to encompass our entire school population (about 1000 students) by broadening appreciation and understanding of cultural diversity.

Brief lesson plan:
Objective: The students will develop informational materials that are read, heard and/or viewed by generating self-published story books to include photographs, personal bilingual dictionaries, glossaries in content areas and descriptive text.

Objectives:
• Students will receive instructions on proper camera use.
• Students will choose a subject or area of interest and develop a plan listing types of photographs needed. This can be an individual or group project.
• Bilingual dictionaries or glossaries will be developed as a cumulative project or as shorter books on a specific topic.
• Students will learn to edit their photos, add titles, text and graphic organizers to enhance their books using computer software.
• Students will learn to publish books using spiral binding.
• Students will share products with their class and possibly as story time for younger classes and their families.


Extended objective: The students will use digital pictures and computer software programs to develop PowerPoint presentations. Project ideas might include but are not limited to: My home and family; Celebrations; My New Home; Picture This (what is this?). These presentations could include: pictures, maps, vocabulary and accompanying text as well as music and narration. These projects would be downloaded to CDs or flash drives for student use with SMART boards in class rooms and a hard copy would be published for our library.

Community involvement: As part of our community involvement and mission to include our families in the education of their children, students participating in this year long effort could present their stories and PowerPoint projects at one of our parent nights. We have several Hispanic Night Out evenings scheduled and could present at that time.

In addition, a link would be added to our Echalk pages, our online school newsletter. The class web page would offer a link under resources. This is offered to all students and their families.
An additional link to the project would be available to the public.

Materials:
SMART boards (provided by earlier grants)
Projectors wired to computers (provided by earlier grants)


Materials requested:
Mobile Digital Camera Lab – $3648.95
Epson Picture Mate - Portable photo printer and 5 color cartridges – Printer - $ 229.99
color cartridges approximately $ 200.00
Publishing: photo paper, cover stock, spiral bindings - approximately $200.00
Smart draw publishing software - $300-1500 (depends on licensing)
20 flash drives @ $15 - $300