I was recently approached by a colleague who was struggling with encouraging co-workers to incorporate technology into their Special Education classroom. In similar instances, my favorite quote to share is this, “For people without disabilities, technology makes things easier. For people with disabilities, technology makes things possible” (IBM training manual, 1991). Technology can be overwhelming but the opportunities that it has to offer are limitless. This brings me in to my student’s latest accomplishment: creating an iMovie. At the end of the year, for a few months, my Instructional Director in our district, +Shannon Soger would come to our classroom once a week to help take on this challenge.We worked one on one, and sometimes two on one with each of my students to help them create their own personalized iMovie. This took time and patience but in the end it was absolutely worth it. Check out one of the iMovies that was created by a student with an Intellectual disability on his favorite movie, Lion King:
Below you will find a quick “How to” for creating an iMovie with students in a self-contained classroom:
1. Shannon and I sat down and selected an iMovie topic for each student based on their interests. (Dora, Stars, Birthday parties, dinosaurs, etc).
2. We created a table of tasks that needed to be accomplished We checked off each student's box each time they completed a task. Here is the checklist we used:
3. We completed this whole activity one step at a time. Shannon would come in and her and i would sit with a student and go through step 1 of making an iMovie: having students select pictures. We googled their topic and and students chose or hand over hand selected 3-5 pictures they liked. We did this for each student 2:1 before moving on to the next step. Then we went on to the next step of importing pictures into the iMovie program. We helped students label each picture and had students who are verbal describe each picture using the voice over feature. Finally, we had the students select music for the iMovie. The results were fantastic!
If you are still hesitant to take this challenge to your classroom, view this short video created by +Shannon Soger on the impact this student’s Lion King iMovie had on his mother.
