Google Forms - Choose Your Own Adventure

Google Forms - Choose Your Own Adventure - My First Attempt

I just created my first Choose Your Own Adventure style story using Google Forms. As a tech coach that deals primarily with elementary school students I would definitely put this in a Gifted and Talented category...at the end of the year...as enrichment (it was kind of hard!).

I found the video above the best as far as instructions go on YouTube. I didn't have to watch the whole thing...I got the general gist by the 8 minute mark.

I liked her flow chart and used the Smart Art Hierarchy Tool to make mine (the teacher in this video used Google Drawings). I thought the Smart Art tool would be easier (since it provides a template) but I'm not sure it is (I would need to try it). Student might find that step too much and might be better off sketching their story out on paper or using numbered index cards. The teacher in the video had 16 levels to her story...I had 17 (if you count the ending...it is 18). That was a lot!

My flow chart was sketch of story and how it would flow from decision point to decision point..knowing I would add to it when I actually got down to the final writing in Google Forms. I am not sure students could handle that (I ran out of space in my boxes for anything other then a rough outline). It did keep me super organized though. Students definitely can't go straight into making the form without some kind of guide (I tried at first and started getting confused at the decision points).

I used a common story as my starting point (Cinderella). I modified it to fit my 17 levels (so no shoe left behind or fairy godmother in my story). That was still tricky...trying to fit in a story in basically 5 levels.

I kept mine blissfully short for my first trial and added clip art to make the levels more engaging.

I definitely think this might be a solid week project with students...as in the last week of school??? I plan to share it next year but with the note that it might not be for everyone.

Here is a link to my first try at a Choose Your Own Adventure story.

Comments

Picture of the Day - Activity

I attended a training class and a science coach shared an activity that he does with his students to help them differentiate between observations, inferences, and predictions. He puts a picture on the interactive white board as a warm up (he gets the pictures from a variety of sources but uses National Geographic's Picture of the Day a lot). The picture above is from the National Geographic site. He has the students make five observations. Then he makes the students make five inferences. Finally he has the students make five predictions. He does this every day and it really drives home the difference between those three key inquiry vocabulary terms. I've done this activity with both my sixth and fourth grade science classes and the students really got into it and became proficient at telling me the difference between those terms.

Weathering, Erosion, and Deposition Activity

I saw this activity at a science conference years ago and haven't had a chance to use it in a classroom until this week (mainly because I didn't teach weathering, erosion, and deposition). It is a great way to reinforce the definition of the weathering, erosion, and deposition in a highly kinesthetic manner. Basically you break the students up into groups of three. One group is "Weathering" another group is "Erosion" and the third group is "Deposition". Add tape to the back because you are going to stick them to the forehead of the children in each group. The "weathering" students get a sheet of paper that is their "rock" they will be breaking down. At the start of the activity the "weathering" students will start ripping tiny pieces of their "rock" and handing it to the "erosion" students. The "erosion" students will be running their tiny piece of "rock...

Bill Nye Songs with Lyrics

At the end of the Bill Nye videos he always has a fun song that goes with the episode. You can find many of the songs as stand alone videos on YouTube. This came in handy because today I am teaching a lesson on layers of the atmosphere and found a song from his Atmosphere video on YouTube titled "Fresh Aire." I really wanted to remix it and put the lyrics on the video (so the kids could sing along and see how the lyrics matched the lesson). The first thing I did was found a site that has all the Bill Nye lyrics posted used my YouTube downloader ( see instructions here ) and downloaded the song. I then imported the video into Movie Maker Live and used the caption feature to put the lyrics on the different frames (cutting and pasting from the lyrics site into Movie Maker Live). I saved the video and reposted to YouTube so other teachers could use the video with lyrics (the finished video is posted above). The process was pretty easy and I am thinking about doing it for more ...

Notebooking, Teaching, and Technology

Search This Blog