A Simple Video Exercise

In the olden days (two years ago), I required my "Literature into Film" students to write a term paper as their final project. I still require a paper, but it is only one component to a project with four parts. My favorite part is the student created video.

Among their requirements:

* Shoot your review with the library Flip Mino or use a recorder at home. You will be marked down for using a computer camera designed for video chat. *Other production values include minimal ambient noise, no reactions to people off camera, undistracting dress (if informal, chic, not gumpy, informal). No mugging or clowning. Close properly * You may use prompt cards, but do not read a full script (Breezy, informal style). * Don't spend more than the first minute on plot. * Highlight the film's strengths and weaknesses. Be specific. * Conclude with a clear recommendation of the film (You are under no obligation to cheerlead). * Please submit your assignment on a thumb drive in a sealed envelope.

I provide students with some resources related to production values. But as is my custom, I spend very little time in class talking tech. I basically turn them loose and collect the thumb drives on the due date. Check out one of the best efforts from last semester:

Click to visit Whitney's video

This is an English class, so we don't produce our original films. But I think you will agree that that Whitney's production does not pale in comparison to a written assignment..... And the videos are so much more fun to "check"!

And I Quote . . . .

Tony Wagner: Most high school educators do not feel a real sense of urgency for change--perhaps because their work isolates them from the larger world of rapid change and they've lived through too many failed education fads.

George Siemens: When [social] connections calcify and become dogma and rigid structure, they fail to represent the chaotic and continually shifting world outside.

Faire Alchemist: The future of education is bound up in the ways that we relate to our alumni via the social connections of the Net. Because the future of education isn't about the classroom; it's about the world. And your alumni are the bridge between the two.

Nicholas Bramble: Educators should stop thinking about how to repress the huge amounts of intellectual and social energy kids devote to social media and start thinking about how to channel that energy away from causing trouble and toward getting more out of their classes. After all, it's not as if most kids are investing commensurate energy into, say, their math homework.

Terry Freedman: Using social networks, and by implication other Web 2.0 applications, is more and more starting to be an economic imperative. Schools which do not recognise this, and act on that realisation, are doing a disservice to their students .

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"The people in charge" Flickr Creative Commons photo by Scott McLeod

Procrastination

Having taught at one school for 35 years, I don't have a broad perspective on the subject of procrastination. But I observe that procrastinating has become a deeply embedded part of my school's culture-- students and adults are rather notorious for waiting until the last minute.

Why blog about such a mundane subject at the Drive-thru? Because multimedia and procrastination are a very bad mix.

I'm thinking of a student group that had all sorts of interesting ideas for expressing information about "equality under the law" on a wiki. They started plans for doing interviews with experts and creating a dramatic enactments on video. None of these came to fruition. They severely underestimated the logistics for achieving their best ideas. Appointments were postponed, technical complications were unanticipated.

Now, before you chalk this up to immaturity, consider this. I've had two academic departments at school approach me about the possibility of helping with video presentation. Cool. I'm glad they see that video can be an attention grabber. But I don't think they appreciate the logistics of making something good. Anyone can turn on a camera. But certainly they don't want to ad lib information about their departments. Who's going to story board this? How may takes will they need? I'm willing to edit their best takes, but not the night before the presentation. As I've warned them, editing is time intensive if you care about production standards.

I'm guessing that at least one of these adult groups goes belly-up with the multimedia. Likely cause of death? Procrastination.

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"07072007012" Flickr Creative Commons Photo by petemaskreplica

A New Approach to Student Presentations

It's strange how these things happen. I expend all this energy integrating technology and applying the Chllenge Based Learning model to my social studies classes this school year, yet my biggest break through may have been something tangential to these pursuits. I have required presentations to the class about these projects. Reorienting the requirements has produced some very pleasing results.

First, a confession: Like many of us, from time to time I have assigned students to "research" this or that and then "present" it to the class. To often, this produces a mortified kid trying to memorize information so that she can disgorge it to her bored, captive audience. Even worse, the student will try to read the information via note cards or her power point. And trust me, the situation can go even further south if you ask this student a question about what he or she has just rattled off. Dazed and confused.

I've tried a different approach with the challenge projects, using instructions like the following:

Each group will make a slide presentation describing their group process, what they learned, and what they hope they achieved by their solution to the challenge.

Group Process -- This includes the mistakes the group made. Wrong turns, rejected ideas, etc. They are also welcome to explain what they might have tried to do with more time or in retrospect.

What They Learned -- They are urged to address this broadly. What they learned may have involved group dynamics, technology tools, how to request an interview, etc.

What They Hoped to Achieve by Their Solution -- This is so much more interesting to listen to than a report on retrieved information, and like the other requirements, it helps them to see their experience as more than a checklist they completed for the teacher.

In addition, groups are told that all members must participate and that under no circumstances will they be allowed to read. I encourage them to be casual and to narrate the group's story.

I admit that not every group project effort has been a raging success this school year (More on that in another post). But I can honestly attest that all of the presentations have been interesting and invariably classmates have paid close attention. Not bad, eh?

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"WhatUp Gov Challenge Based Project group.

CBL Video - A Different Kind of Project

Alissa emphatically points out important differences between an Apple Challenge Based Learning Project and conventional group assignments. Until I tried a CBL, I was always frustrated by the artificiality of "project" assignments which were basically designed by the teacher and completed for the teacher. In those kinds of projects, students simply jump through hoops.

In my government classes I have often tried many different types of current events projects. But the results were often depressingly superficial. This school year I have tried cbls with both my AP and sophomore government classes. As Alissa reflects, the results were refreshingly different.

Rewritable Textbooks

I was excited to read* in the New York Times "Textbooks that Professors Can Rewrite Digitally". It describes a new plan by Macmillan to introduce DynamicBooks:

- "Professors will be able to reorganize or delete chapters; upload course syllabuses, notes, videos, pictures and graphs; and perhaps most notably, rewrite or delete individual paragraphs, equations or illustrations."

- DynamicBooks gives instructors the power to alter individual sentences and paragraphs without consulting the original authors or publisher.

- "The DynamicBooks editions — which can be reached online or downloaded — can be read on laptops and the iPhone from Apple. Clancy Marshall, general manager of DynamicBooks, said the company planned to negotiate agreements with Apple so the electronic books could be read on the iPad."

- "The modifiable e-book editions will be much cheaper than traditional print textbooks."

I have already replaced two of my traditional texts with my own digital curriculum (see ...Bookless Course and A Digital Anthology..., but I would be the first to admit that replacing an entire text for a course is a very labor-intensive task. How much better, to offer the students a semester-specific text with supplementary materials added and extraneous material removed. The reduced cost of this e-book would be an added incentive to go in that direction.

Of course, a teacher planning a new prep would not want this, but I think many course veterans would love the chance to customize their texts. Think of the slides that the textbook publishers provide as an ancillary. I'm sure most teachers customize these. They provide a nice foundation of information upon which the teacher can build a customized presentation.

I hope Macmillan and other publishers move in this direction, soon. I'm guessing I'll have this option for my A.P. class in the very near future.

*Thanks to Barb for spotting this article for me.

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Screen shot from home page of DynamicBooks.

Five Tenth Graders Jump out of the Box

So why are these tenth graders smiling? Perhaps it is because they know they will astonish their American Government teacher in a few days.

They were doing research for the Big Idea, Equality, as part of a modified Challenge Based Learning project. They chose to focus on immigrants, and their goal was to communicated information about this topic through multimedia on a wiki.

Initially, I discouraged them from interviewing because I was concerned that these interviews might net more emotional or historical information than an understanding of the law itself.

Undeterred (and without my knowledge), these same five girls googled a local law firm which specialized in immigration law. They made a cold call to the firm and landed a personal interview with the principal member of the firm. Treated with great respect, they were given full scope for their questions and were even allowed to post the interview as a podcast on their wiki. Along with the podcast, they posted a Flickr Slide Show of their visit (WikiSpaces has a cool widget for doing so). Now, you can see why they were beaming!

This was just one feature of a terrific multimedia wiki on "Immigrants and Equality". Their teacher was mighty proud of them for their resourcefulness .... and their moxie!

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Photo by Whitney J.