Watching the final project today was very exciting! I enjoyed seeing how each act worked with their students to produce their own versions. Each act was different yet shared similar attributes. Most acts used action figures or drawings to represent the characters. Some acts were able to use more audio from the students than others. Watching them all together was exciting because we have been working separately this entire semester. While we consulted with other groups for details, we did not share how we were executing the production. Something exciting about this project is that we are able to share it with future JSP students. Even if they do not have to complete their project remotely, it might help them to see how we produced our version!

This project was a great learning experience for the students as well as myself. I had to be patient with the students and learn to go with the flow of technological errors. I am hoping to show the final version to my family once my exams are over, we will have a movie night!

We had our final meeting with the students yesterday. Our plan was to show the students the movie we had made with their photos, however we recieved the photos an hour before our meeting began. This proved was a nice coincidence because instead of doing that we were able to take some voice recordings of the students! Two of the students were eager to read the script so we asked them to do the narration at the beginning and ending of each scene. They were very excited to do this and it makes our movie much more exciting!

When piecing together the film last night I was glad that we were able to include the voices of the students. I was frustrated at first because I had already created the audio files on I-Movie. However, it did not take long to include the new recordings we took in our meetings, and it sounds much better with the students voices.

I am sad that this was our last meeting! I looked forward to seeing the kids each week and interacting with them as best we could. Although this project was frustrating at times I was enjoyed working with the students the most. I hope that they are pleased with the work they did and enjoy watching the movie!

Todays meeting was my favorite by far. I shared my screen with the class to show the script we wrote with the students. One of the students, Dion was thrilled to read it out loud. In fact he read every single line all the way through for every character! His reading was very theatrical and enthusiastic he made up different voices for each character. I honestly was cracking up he was getting so in to it. This was such a great moment to observe with the students because we have had a difficult time connecting with them in previous meetings.

After Dion read the first scene his classmates begged him to keep reading. He did so without persuasion. The students liked the script but asked that we work to rhyme it a little bit more. I like this suggestion they gave us. Our next steps are to finalize the script and create the video. Once the teacher sends us the photos they are working on we can add the audio to it. As of now we are going to use our own voices, however, after today we are wanting to include Dion! I look forward to bringing this project together and each week its becoming more real!

Thursday’s meeting was extremely productive. The teacher working with the students was very helpful and was able to maintain the student’s attention. We sent the class a list of pictures we need them to take and send to us. The teacher helped the students work through this list and take photos of the action figures in front of the drawings they made. This moves us along nicely with our plan.

I felt bad because we did not interact much with the students this week and the teacher did most of the work. This is challenging because we want to help as much as possible but some things we are unable to help with, like organizing the students to take pictures. I am hopeful that in future meetings we can interact with the students more. Our plan for next week is to review the script with them and see what they think!

Today’s meeting got off to a rocky start with some technical problems. However, once we got moving it went alright. We were excited to see that they had completed their drawings for the backgrounds. Once they showed us their drawings (which looked great) we had difficulty maintaining their attention. There were only three students in the class today when there are typically 5. To regain their attention we asked them to show us the action figures, and tell us what role each of them will be playing. They did so and then we began to discuss the photos we need them to take for us.

We were able to get two photos out of this meeting and I am hoping that next week we will get a few more. our plan is to send a detailed list of photographs we need of each character in which backgrounds. Once we get all of the photos we can then work on the audio and scripts! This project is coming to life and I am excited to see what the end result will be!

Today was a little more challenging. We began with some technical difficulties over Google Meets and got started 15 minutes late. When we began the students were entheastic because they had gotten their action figures! They spent 10 minutes taking the action figures out of their packages and then we discussed which character would be which action figure. This was a little hectic, but the teacher with the group today was very helpful. She was familiar with Much Ado and was able to help the students decide on characters.

Last week we had asked the students to begin working on their drawings, but they were unable to do so before class. That was okay because they began working on their drawings during our call. We lost our connection with the class shortly after they began and were unable to re-connect. This meeting was very short because of technical difficulties but it is okay because we will be able to meet with them next week.

Our hope is to get lots of different background drawings and photos of the action figures in various poses in front of them. We do not have that much more work to do with the students besides helping them complete their artwork!

This week’s meeting was great! We went into it with a rough plan of what we wanted to talk about and this helped us stay on track. We began by reviewing a plot outline of our Act. Before the meeting, we sent a written outline to the teacher and he printed it out for the students. This helped the students focus on what we were going to cover in our scenes. We then began to discuss what sort of methods they wanted to use to visualize the play. They were keen on using action figures and drawing so we are going to do a combination of the two!

I found this week to be rewarding and much more productive than last week because we had a plan, and the students were engaging with the material. There was little involvement from the teacher in the classroom, which proved to help their focus on the four of us. They seemed to be very excited by the use of drawing and action figures and began to brainstorm some creative ways to display the party scene! As a spoiler, there might be a Halloween pool party coming your way soon!

We ended by discussing ideas for drawings they might create and asked them to use some free time to sketch ideas for the party scene and lockerroom scene!

This afternoon we had our first meeting with our students! I was excited about going into it because I love working with kids, however, it was nerve-racking because there were so many unknowns. We logged onto Google Meet and were greeted by one screen with 5 students sitting in a classroom. We started with some casual introductions which revealed our first technological issue. It was extremely difficult to hear them and I was unable to pick up on all of their names. Additionally, because they are all in one room and we are just a few faces on a screen it proved to be difficult to maintain their attention. There was a teacher there with them who was helping us to keep them on track, but it was challenging.

We began working on the project by showing a video to help explain the plot, this seemed to confuse them. From there we decided to relay the plot of our Act through casual conversation. This helped the students learn about the plot, however, they were still confused. They asked lots of questions and were very engaged. This is exciting because I think they will be very active participants in this project.

They were very interested in how and why the actors worked so long ago. They asked questions about what the play was like during Shakespeare’s time and what the actors were like. This reminded me of the conversations we have had as well as the podcasts that discussed England during Shakespeare’s time. This meeting made me very excited to begin working on this project, but it also made me aware of some of the challenges we will face, such as technology. Obviously, it would be nice to be with the students in person, however, we are doing the best we can and I am excited to see what comes out of it!