There's No Place like Home

My video link demonstrates what I yearly try to have my students be a part of with getting to know the people and places of Clayton, NY. I bought two Flips for my home a few years ago. Sh! Don't tell my husband I sneak his into school and the kids use it as well as mine. Flips are so easy to use and I love watching the kids faces light up when I say they may use one. To have ten FLIPS in my room (I would share with other classes-the students could teach other students and with our local history museum-even volunteer to teach a summer three day session for kids on using them to preserve history, too!) would be an opportunity of a lifetime! I have instilled in my students a thirst for learning beyond the classroom walls by visiting our community richly filled with people who know the past better than anyone. Being able to allow interviews we could put together with many Flips going at once would be the ideal way to obtain oral histories about the people, places and environment. We do cemetery visits, museum visits, take historic walking tours, learn about our River and its environment and meet a few times a year with our local historian, tying in the period of time we are learning in our SS Curriculum with our own local history.

It would be perfect to videotape these tours instead of taking stills all the time to add to PPT or Photoshows. To have a mixture of technology in my classroom would allow my students to think outside the box and perhaps one day encourage them to create their own memories through the power of a Flip camera. The last thing I would do is have the students become teachers. I would ask the students to volunteer their time and talents to hold a workshop with adults/seniors in the community to show them how easy it is to use a FLIP Camera. What a dream accomplished this would be. Allowing my fifth grade seniors (they are moving to the middle school next year) an opportunity to reach out to the seniors of our community! Preserving the past for the future through the present! What a unique way to provide cooperative learning with hands on experiences!

Thank you for any consideration you may have.