Interactive Story Tech Steps

This week we have been working on a Tech Step lesson that involves students creating a power point and using hyperlinks to move through the story. This is a really cool lesson for the students because they are able to get creative with their story writing. They are using a story map to map out their writing for each power point slide. This writing is taking place in the classroom. My host teacher and I are working together to help the students understand the way the story should flow and help them organize their ideas. This time writing in the classroom is essential to the success of the lesson. The writing needs to be done before entering the computer lab so the students can focus on the technology part of the lesson while on the computer.
So far this lesson is going very successfully. I would attribute the success of this lesson to the prep work that my host teacher and I did. These activities included planning and organizing the lesson, practicing building the power point, over viewing teacher and student views of the lesson, and also the hyperlink training for the tech step. Since we spent so much time planning the lesson I think it is going to continue to be very successful.
This week we spent twenty minutes a day writing and editing the story. We had the students focus on the characters, plot, and setting of their story to make sure that it would work with the power point. The students were working very hard on creating an interesting and original story. They were having a lot of fun coming up with choices and ideas for the different threads of the story. Next week thes students will work on creating the power point aspect of the Tech Step lesson.Next week's blog will be about the conclusion of this lesson and a reflection on its outcome.