Digital BookTalk! Clifford and the Grouchy Neighbors by Norman Bridwell

The booktalk was such a fun experience for me, I really enjoyed picking a book, choosing the way I was going to do my booktalk and then planning the whole thing. I believe that I put a lot of effort into making my booktalk. I first had to pick the book that I wanted to do for my booktalk. That was really fun because I chose a book that I have loved since I was a child. Then I had to make props and costumes for the booktalk. I made different props for the different scenes in my booktalk. I had to make a Clifford costume for my dog Tye. One of the hardest parts of the booktalk was having my dog as the main actor in my small film. I was very worried that he would eat the other characters or eat the props (he has a tendency to eat things). It was also hard for him to stay still, so the whole booktalk was an fun filled adventure. I was pleasantly surprised by my dog’s acting skills. I really was impressed on how well he stayed in his one spot while filming. I think overall the filming part of the booktalk went very well. I also had to make a script for my sister and I to read for the booktalk . After filming all of the scenes we did the audio for the booktalk. Next after everything was uploaded onto my computer I had to use Window’s Movie Maker to edit and combine all of the different elements. This was an especially difficult part of the project because you have to align all of the audio with the video and create headings and credits. It was a fun and great learning experience. I believe that I exerted a lot of effort on this project and I am happy with the outcome.

I think the value of this course task is to show us that we can use these types of things in our classroom, not only can we encourage our students to make their own booktalk about their favorite book but we can also make some to promote different books that we are going to read in our classroom. I think that this is a fun and worthwhile project that will be very beneficial in our classroom. I think that students will find a lot of gratification and pride from doing a project like this. They are able to speak their mind about a book that they really enjoy and show their classmates what fun and exciting books are out there for them to read. I kind of view a digital booktalk as a digital show and tell. I used to love show and tell and now students can show their fellow classmates their favorite books, just in a different way. I really liked this project and see how it can be beneficial in my future classroom!