WALDPORT, Oregon—This quiet community of 3,000 on the Oregon coast is a world removed from the movie lots of Hollywood. But fifth-graders in Ruth McDonald's class at Waldport Elementary have no trouble envisioning themselves as future directors or screenplay writers. After all, they're already producing films of the animated genre.

McDonald's active classroom houses 24 students and an ever-expanding collection of technology tools that she's assembled through a combination of grant writing, "scrounging," and personal investment. She has her kids using computers and cameras for nearly every learning opportunity, from social studies to science projects to poetry.

To enhance her students' understanding of literary elements—character, plot, setting, and theme—McDonald has cobbled together a variety of technologies to enable students to produce clay animation movies. Students work in groups, storyboarding their ideas for scenes. Next, they construct their clay characters and sets. Then it's time for filming—but not the fast-action variety.

"Using digital cameras, the students take hundreds of pictures," McDonald explains, "making tiny moves for each shot." The result: stop-motion animation, with 15 frames photographed per each second of video.

Next, she teaches students how to import their still images into a nonlinear editing program on the computers. Students add music, audio, narration, voice, titles, and special effects to complete their productions.

"This project has been the best motivator ever," she says. Students beg her to let them stay indoors at recess and after school to keep working on their projects. "Students keep saying this is the most fun they've ever had in school."

With 23 years of teaching experience, McDonald makes sure that students not only enjoy themselves, but also accomplish learning goals, such as understanding those literary elements. She also aims to help them "make connections between the state standards and benchmarks, and the world. I want them to realize that technology can increase their creativity, and that there are possibilities out there for careers." At the same time, she confesses, "I've never had as much fun in teaching as I'm having now."

In a community with a high poverty level, only about half the students have access to computers at home. Most teachers have one or two computers in their classrooms. Because of her aggressive efforts to acquire equipment, McDonald has five networked computers in her classroom.

"I really believe—and seeing is believing—that integrating technology into my instruction has enhanced student learning. The kids have a reason to read and write now. They're motivated," she says.

Recently, she was staying after school to work with several students on their film editing. One asked her, "Mrs. McDonald, why are you doing all this work with us?" She told him that, someday, when he received his Academy Award for animation or another type of moviemaking, "he should be sure to say he owed it all to his fifth-grade teacher!"