Posted With Permission...

So, I often find great articles and information on the internet.  I found this article,
written by Media Specialist Pat Dietrich of Tallahassee, Florida, so I emailed him.
He said "Hi Darci, Yes you may use my paper.  It was a grant proposal-
I will caution you that it is several years old and I don't know if all the links are
still valid.  Good luck! Pat"

I took out the broken links and made what he had listed "live" for you...
Not "reinventing the wheel" is right up my alley and I thought his paper had a lot of merit!
Warning:  It is 11 pages worth of document and I know long pages are a no-no, but I didn't want to break this up.



Why Use iMovie?? 
With iMovie, you can bring your lessons to life through video, sound, and pictures. 
iMovie is a powerful and highly engaging tool for students to share their knowledge 
and express themselves in the form of digital movies. Your students can create 
high-quality video reports to demonstrate abstract concepts, or documentaries to 
increase the relevance of social issues. And you can easily share best classroom 
practices with your peers. Students can create compelling projects that combine 
digital video, photos, and music, and even their own voice narration. There’s no limit 
to what they can create. 

From Apple Education - iMovie in the Classroom Web page
http://www.apple.com/education/imovie/

A Real Life Example
My project used iMovie software in the video production studio, where students in
fifth grade produced a weekly book review to highlight children’s literature and
encourage reading at our school. As the Media Specialist at my school, I help
students produce a live morning news show that all students in the school watch.
Five news teams consisting of eleven fifth grade students on each team produce this
show. (55 students)  Fifth graders encourage reading to their peers by featuring a
book from our Media Center on Friday’s show.  Students vary the reading level of
the featured book so that all grade levels will benefit.  The major curriculum areas
are reading, writing and technology.  We began using iMovie to feature books three
years ago as part of our Sunshine State Young Readers incentives and have since
featured it on our morning news show.

Example of what students do and learn: Students use research skills to locate
information on the Internet about the book and author they are highlighting.  Then
students use this information to write scripts that they will read as other students
use their technology skills to video tape them.  Students learn to use a digital video
and still camera as they work on the project.  Research skills, writing and reading
skills, real world use of technology, and video editing skills are used by the students
in order to complete their iMovie.

Example of a classroom activity:  After the research is completed, the two
producers write scripts, practice what they want to say and then have a peer use a
video camera to tape this section of the movie. The iMovie producers import this
video into their iMovie and complete the iMovie by importing digital pictures of the
book and author, titles and credits and music that will make their iMovie complete.
Next the producers dub their iMovie to a VCR tape so that they have a personal
copy and so that it can be shown on Friday’s news show.  Learning to do video editing
is a useful skill as students move on to middle school and enter history fairs or
want to make documentaries that showcase their learning.
Student Outcomes for this Project
*  Students write scripts that summarize the plot/story problem of a library book.
*  Students use appropriate search engines to find information about the author’s
life and then write a summary of that author.
*  Students use digital video cameras to film each other telling the plot/summary of
the library book and a summary of the author’s life.
*  Students use iMovie software to produce a movie highlighting a book which
includes: imported pictures of the book and the author from the internet, uploaded
video of the students telling the summary of the book and the author’s life, video
editing such as transitions between slides, music to enhance the movie and credits
at the end of the movie.
*  Students dub the iMovie onto a VCR tape and have it ready to share with the
school each Friday morning via the morning news show.  They also make a copy for
themselves. (In 2010 we would use DVD, or a TD or XHD!)

How Other Students Are Using iMovie
•To create documentaries, historical reenactments, and news reports on
current events.
•To record science experiments, create environmental documentaries, and
present their science projects.
•To create digital stories and poetry, bring journal writing to life, and
produce movie adaptations of literature.
•To present difficult and abstract math concepts, enabling teachers to more
effectively assess their knowledge.
`from Apple Education - iMovie in the Classroom Web page
http://www.apple.com/education/imovie

Standards and Benchmarks
Standards Set 1
Information Literacy Standards from Information Power – Building Partnerships
for Life the guideline for School Library Media programs.
Standard 2 - The student who is information literate evaluates information
critically and competently.
Florida Student Information Literacy Descriptors
2.2b – Recognizes that ideas and information is influenced by social, cultural,
political and historical events
Sunshine State Standards and Benchmarks
LAD 2.2.5 – Understands that a variety of messages can be conveyed through mass
media.
Standards Set 2
Information Literacy Standards from Information Power – Building Partnerships
for Life the guideline for School Library Media programs.
Standard 3 - The student who is information literate uses information accurately
and creatively.
Florida Student Information Literacy Descriptors
3.1a – Establishes a clear focus for the product and /or information needed.
Sunshine State Standards and Benchmarks
LAA 2.2.5 – Reads and organizes information for a variety of purposes, including
making a report, conducting interviews, taking a test and performing an authentic
task.
Standards Set 3
Information Literacy Standards from Information Power – Building Partnerships
for Life the guideline for School Library Media programs.
Standard 3 - The student who is information literate uses information accurately
and creatively.
Florida Student Information Literacy Descriptors
3.4a – Understands that information can be shared in a variety of formats, such as
written, oral, visual, electronic.
Sunshine State Standards and Benchmarks
LAD 2.2.4 – Selects and uses appropriate technologies to enhance efficiency and
effectiveness of communication

School Improvement Goal 3: Students, teachers and staff will develop technology
skills for achieving success in learning, communicationa and life skills.
Objective 3.1 - 100% of teachers and 100% of students will participate in
multimedia applications and/or telecommunications to assist their teaching and
learning.

Best practice:  Dimension Four of Dimensions of Learning is “Using Knowledge
Meaningfully.”  When students use knowledge in a “real world” situation, they face
real life barriers and issues and come up with solutions.  By working on a product-
based project, students demonstrate their understanding of the processes learned in
this real life scenario.

Adaptability:  Using iMovie to showcase student learning is very adaptable for use
in classrooms that are using the Macintosh platform.  Students can use iMovie to
make documentaries, book reports, and other research based reports.  Teachers of
younger students can use iMovie as a full class activity where each student
contributes to a whole class research project.  Then the iMovie can be shown to
parents, or shown via ITV to other classes in the school.
This project could also be adapted for use in schools that use the PC platform by
using similar video editing software such as Ulead or Studio 9.  Most schools have a
studio for their morning news show and students who could be trainers for students
who want to learn how to use iMovie or similar software.
Teachers would want to use iMovie because it is a creative strategy for showcasing
student learning.  Students are highly motivated and stay on-task while learning
creative ways to “show what they know.”

Materials and Resources: This project requires a computer, video editing software
(iMovie or PC equivalent), a digital video camera and Internet access.  An additional
resources that are useful, but not necessary, are a digital still camera and/or a
scanner.  Students can teach each other once a team of students has been taught to
use video editing software.

Annotated List of Web sites That Have Examples of iMovie Projects
- This web site shows examples of iMovies created by children and
include the following ideas:

Commercials 2001 - Once again iMovie is being used to create commercials
for schools and programs. See the latest set of commercials.

I Pledge Allegiance - On the final day of an 8 day unit on the American Flag,
students made a video demonstrating what they learned about the Pledge of
Allegiance.

Owl Pellets - Third graders created an iMovie to describe the process of
dissecting an owl pellet and finding the skeletons.

Brown Bear Brown Bear - Students read "Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do
You See." The book was written by Bill Martin and illustrated by Eric Carle.
The students painted wall murals of the story characters and then retold the
story with a partner. The mural helped the Kindergarten students work on
color words while retelling the story.

Famous People -Third graders have to present an oral presentation on a
researched historical person. This example is a third grader's report on Louis
Armstrong. The 3rd grader had to present as if they were that person and
talk in the first person.

Chicks - An iMovie about hatching chicks in the classroom. Kindergarten and
first grade classes often hatch eggs in the classroom. iMovie allows classes
to easily document their experience. Students can take home a 20 minute
video documenting the month long activity. This 3 minute iMovie is a quick
view of that longer movie.

African Folk Tales - Students at Lincoln Magnet School learned about the
many countries in Africa and their culture. As a culminating project, students
then wrote their own African folk tales, incorporating the information
they've acquired about the culture and the characteristics of folk tales. They
then shared their folk tales, African artifacts, and African music during an
African Extravaganza!

Magnet Magic Show - David Curry's Primary Special Needs class at Butler
Elementary used the secrets of magnets to perform magic tricks for their
3rd Annual "Magnetic Magic Show".

From Pyramids to Video Games - A History of Theater written by Miss Ann
Hagemann to begin the artist-in-residency program. iMovie allows such a quick
and easy review of the play!

iCarts -Using iMovie to Record go-cart models - The iMovies illustrate the
changes made to one team's go-cart. Students designed, constructed, tested,
evaluated and redesigned.

Reading Strategies - This is an example of using iMovie to teach or review
specific strategies for professional development.

Just-in-Time Commercials - The problem was simple: create 27 or 58 second
commercials for a television production and you have 24 hours to do it. iMovie
was the final answer because it provided a simple, fast way to create school-
related publicity videos.

Revolutionary War iMovie - Eighth grade students at Lincoln Magnet School
researched important people from the Revolutionary War. They then wrote
first person narratives about the person's life and presented the accounts
from the point of view of the famous person. Here is one example.
Immigration iMovie - Sixth graders at Lincoln Magnet School learned about
immigration and the experiences of those who immigrated to America. Each
student wrote first person narratives from the point of view of an
immigrant, describing their reasons for leaving their country, the journey, and
their arrival at Ellis Island.

My Community is Changing! - It's fall and the corn and soybeans are being
harvested in central Illinois. How is your community changing?
FOSS Land forms - A wonderful use for iMovie 2. Students video taped the
stream table experiment. The next day they narrated the tape as a review,
and also used iMovie to run a "fast" version. Be sure to see the video clips
from the flood of '93 as well.

Miss Jane Pittman - Students read the book The Story of Miss JanePittman.
Students created historical newspapers about that period of time. iMovie was
just beginning to be an option, and so students created scripts for possible
iMovies. One example is shown. Students enjoyed finding contemporary music
to highlight their ideas.

- Lesson plans using iMovie
can be found on this site.  Also there are tips for video editing on this site.
http://web.utk.edu/~impact/iMovie.html - Implementing Partnerships Across the
Curriculum with Technology is a project by the University of Tennessee to
incorporate technology into the classroom.  The site gives iMovie resources and
examples.
http://www.tech4learning.com/services/teachingwithdigitalcameras.htm - This
site includes turorials for using digital cameras, tips for taking great pictues and
lesson plans.
http://www.forsyth.k12.ga.us/sbeck/digital/goingdigital.htm - Going Digital in
the Classroom - This site gives classroom uses for digital cameras and scanners.
http://www.techlearning.com/db_area/archives/WCE/archives/heese6.htm -
Digitizing the Primary Classroom - This is a good article about digital cameras,
video cameras, scanners and Web cams and how to use them in the classroom.  You
can also sign up for free newsletters at the end of this article.