Note: Inspired by one of my favorite children’s books, “Fortunately” by Remy Charlip.
Naomi, the teacher, must teach the story “True Love” by Asimov.
*FORTUNATELY, Naomi had the idea to prepare a short slideshow comparing the story to the movie HER, as a lead-in activity. Visual activities are good for deaf & hard of hearing students.
UNFORTUNATELY, Naomi teaches in the format of a learning center and students need to watch it at different times.
FORTUNATELY, Naomi easily uploaded the slideshow to Edmodo using slideshare. She has a computer with Internet access in her English Center-Classroom . Students can watch when needed.
*UNFORTUNATELY, the air-conditioner in the English-Center-Classroom has been out-of-order since Sept. 1 and Naomi must teach every hour in a different room, without access to a computer.
FORTUNATELY, Edmodo has an app.
UNFORTUNATELY, Naomi used slideshare which means that another app must be installed to watch the slideshare. Not good.
FORTUNATELY, Naomi reposted the activity, uploading the original PowerPoint instead of slideshare.
UNFORTUNATELY, some of the students who DID use the computer (in the library or at home) to watch the slideshow didn’t watch it in “slideshow” mode. Which meant that the link to the section of the trailer (for the movie “Her”), which was cropped using Edpuzzle, wasn’t clickable. Some pasted the link into the browser but others did not watch the clip. On slideshare all the links are clickable.
FORTUNATELY, those who watched the slideshow found it pretty interesting (“how could a person possibly love a computer?” they wondered) whether or not they saw the clip.
UNFORTUNATELY, Some students didn’t watch it all before beginning the story because their confused teacher, who was exhausted from lugging all the class material over half the building, every period, didn’t check Edmodo’s progress charts.
FORTUNATELY, everyone seems to be doing very well with the story (seems a good choice for these teens!) regardless of how much of the lead-in activity they saw, if at all.
So why did Naomi bother preparing a lead-in activity?