Flat+Stanley

ASSIGNMENT DESCRIPTION

We will participate in a Flat Stanley collaborative project. Who is Flat Stanley? In the 1964 book, Flat Stanley Adventure, by James Brown, Stanley is "made flat" when a heavy bulletin board falls on him. He is able to visit friends because he can be folded and placed in an envelope to be mailed. The Official Flat Stanley Website is located at http://www.flatstanley.com.

In our variation of this collaborative project, each individual in the class will act as a "class that is participating in the project." Flat Stanley will visit with you (and your classroom if you so choose) so Flat Stanley will be able to "see the sights" in the mid-Atlantic area. The collaboration will be the sharing of Flat Stanley's individual visits through a Website.

You will receive an electronic Flat Stanley that you can 'groom' and 'dress' and take to fun and interesting places. Two variations are available (see attached files), one to print and color with crayons. The other to electronically color in PhotoShop Elements (or any photo manipulation software) and print. Be sure to take pictures because Flat Stanley would like to have a record of his visit, and the class will create a wiki to document all the places Flat Stanley went.

You will need at least three (3) digital pictures of Flat Stanley to use on your wiki page. Take Flat Stanley out and have him pose while he is doing fun and exciting things! Make sure you get in some of the pictures, too. We will collaboratively create the Flat Stanley wiki (next week) with each person responsible for one page of the wiki! The collaborative project is a descriptive writing assignment, but in our case, it is also used to teach how to work with a wiki, manipulate photographic images, insert images in a wiki, insert audio (and possibly video) in a wiki, and miraculously, create a fairly sophisticated Website using a wiki!

The Flat Stanley Collaborative Project is a descriptive writing project for the participants who are usually lower elementary students. We have expanded the project to include an introduction to digital photography (both taking and manipulating photos), creating an audio file (that could be a podcast), optionally a video, and laying out material on a wiki.

Pull together all of your Flat Stanley products: at least three photos, audio file, and optionally, a video file. Place the material on the collaborative project wiki at http://wuflatstanley.wikispaces.com. Each student will contribute one page to the wiki (Click on New Page in the upper left and name the page with First Name Last Name) highlighting their portion of Flat Stanley’s “overall adventure.” The page will include at a minimum: a title, student’s name, three (3) “Web-efficient” pictures of Flat Stanley’s “adventure” with a brief description of each picture (this is a descriptive writing project), optionally a video clip of Flat Stanley, and the audio clip. Although there are minimum requirements and guidelines, you should be creative within the guidelines.

SKILLS EXPANDED

In participating in this project, I felt as though I expanded on some of my technology skills. I love taking pictures but don't usually crop many of my photos. Doing this project I took several pictures and used different cropping tools in order to achieve the look I was going for with regards to Flat Stanley. Also I was able to expand on my skills in using Wikispaces and adding to or creating a Wikipage. I don't have alot of experience with this type of Technology and the more I use it the more I actually like it.

Now I think you are ready to view the Wiki. Here are links to the collaborative Flat Stanley Wiki and my Wiki: http://wuflatstanley.wikispaces.com http://jessicajillscott.wikispaces.com  I hope you enjoy viewing these pages.

REFLECTION

The Flat Stanley project really didn't make much sense to me at first and I had never heard of Flat Stanley. I read about it and visited the website and then it started to make more sense. I felt that this project would had been more fun for me if I taught younger students. I think I could have done more with the project and could have gotten a lot more out of it. I think the idea behind the Flat Stanley project is great but just not suited for all grades levels. I had to bribe my boys to pose for a picture with Flat Stanley and they are only 8 and 10. Needless to say I didn't use that picture because it was clear that they were not very happy with me. But overall I thought the project was creative and incorporated a few useful types of technology.