Week 13

The process of filming a movie is so much more intense and difficult than you think it is before you start. You think, oh I'll just film a few scenes and then just stick them together. But the mose sense it makes in your head, the less sense it makes when you start to film. I suppose it's different for kids, because obviously they aren't expected to produce Spielberg, but it still takes a lot of planning beforehand in order to avoid gaps in reasoning. Concerns with using video in the classroom are pretty much the same as with any activity. Teachers need to make sure that students are staying on task when they are off filming on their own and make sure that they are safe in whatever they are doing. Keeping it appropriate is also a problem when you are giving kids a camera to film their actions, especially in the older grades. However, an assignment involving filming a movie is still great for kids of all ages. It allows them to be creative and really take charge of their assignment. They work on everything from time management to group work and get to use media materials, which, for most students, is probably a rarity. Lacking anything else, I think video making it just a good opportunity for students who have little other opportunity to learn in that manner.
I liked the reading this week because it makes way, almost gives permission, to use fun and creativity in the classroom, even for the more "serious" subjects. Many times projects like videos are deemed as purely fun with no real educational merit; but as this reading proves and explains, it's not so difficult to make a real lesson plan with a video project. Obviously, there needs to be a good basis for the lesson with a true educational purpose and a clear area of information to be learned/expressed. I remember freshman year of high school we had to film a video of a modern day interpretation of a scene from Romeo and Juliet. Our group picked the shortest scene possible and spent more time on costumes than anything else and then someone decided we needed to spend $100 to have it professionally edited. A worthless experience, all in all, and perfect example of how not to do a video project. On the flip side, in another project from school, our groups were given the option of doing a video. The topic was more refined and pointed and guidelines were more strict for a better outcome. Students who did videos concentrated more on the idea rather than the process, which ended in actual education. I suppose this is just a long winded way of saying that the way the Scot/Harding article is layed out helps teachers have a better idea of how to impliment a video project in a helpful manner.

Week 12

I was surprised, mostly, by how unaccessible most of the information was. For something that effects so many people, teachers across the country, it sure was difficult to decipher concrete rules and regulations regarding fair use and copyright. The information, even on sites that I looked up on my own, was very legal and murky, almost more confusing than nothing at all.
I always figured that fair use and copyright and the like were less important for teachers. We use worksheets, and charts and information and movies for educational use in the classroom, and while most teachers have a "who's gunna know" mentality, it could still get us in trouble at some point and that is an important fact to remember.
I remember hearing about a teacher who was sued by Disney because she had a unit dedicated to Disney with her young elementary students. It made my skin crawl because I love using Disney in the classroom and I've done it many times! But I always assumed that showing or discussing a movie in the classroom would not be a big deal. I looked up the story and could find no proof that this actually happened, but it's still always made me think.
I wish I knew more about specific copyright law and fair use law. Like the deal with showing movies and using things solely in the classroom.

Making the movie in the classroom was a fun experience, but at the same time it was terribly stressful. It was really hard to get all the information we needed and all the scenes we wanted for it to make sense and also keep it under 2 minutes. Add to that fact that I hate seeing myself on video more than almost anything else in the world, and it made for quite a stressful day! But the movie filming option has always seemed like a good one for students, to me. It gives students a chance to be creative and find a fun way to learn. If students are having fun then they're going to absorb and retain more. Using video also gives them a larger range of education. Instead of just learning about, say, desert animals, they are also learning about video equipment, filming, computer programs, etc. Teachers just have to make sure the assignment is disgestable.

Week 10

Student created video projects information:


http://content.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=6758

This site is great because it's specifically a teacher's guide to making student movies. Scholastic is always a great site to work from and this article is exceptional in that capacity. A teacher who has actually done student video projects in her classroom gives step by step guides, examples and student handouts so other teachers can duplicate her success. There is a great list of resources and project ideas that give basically any information any teacher would need, including links to tutorials. So, even if a teacher has no idea what they are doing, they can figure it out before they have their kids do it. I would highly recommend this site for teachers doing video projects, in fact, I'm bookmarking it myself for future use!



http://www.needleworkspictures.com/ocr/blog/?p=220

This site focuses more on the "why" rather than the "how" of integrating student created video projects into the classroom. I think that this information is just as important as how to do it because there's no point in having students do something and neither the teacher nor the students knows why they are doing it, and to what end. There are five reasons explained in more detail: student engagement, student achievement, higher level thinking (ding ding ding!), media literacy, and closing the digital divide. It also talks of creating life long learners.


http://www.apple.com/education/digitalauthoring/ilife.html

This site is, obviously, slightly bias seeing as how it IS the Apple site talking about their own programs, but there is still good information there. This site discusses the new Apple iLife 08 which is suite of programs including iMovie, GarageBand, iWeb and iDVD. Apparently, iLife has tools which support the newest ISTE tech standards for students. They also have information on the Escondido Union Elementary School District, and how test scores have supposedly gone up with the use of iLife. I thought that was interesting since it's so close to home and it seemed to be "proof" that these type of student created projects actually help students on many levels.

Week 9

http://www.evalutech.sreb.org/criteria/index.asp

This site is great because it compiles a lot of information in one place for teachers to have easy access. A lot of the information provided proves to be helpful because the lists are things that we know but at any given moment would never be able to remember. Obviously, a teacher will think about things like appropriateness and potential uses, but maybe technical aspects would slip their minds. (Although after this class, technical aspects will never again slip my mind!) The range of materials described is also a plus, because while many teachers may easily be able to tell if a book or a video is appropriate and useful for the class, webportals, video disks and annotating courseware might be new ideas.
In the classroom, or as a teacher rather, this would useful in that it would concentrate all the information I need to be thinking about, sort of like making a "to-do" list of figuring out academic appropriateness. It gives hints and lists and even forms to fill out, like Kathy Schrock's evaluation form and the SIIA Checklist. This information would almost be more useful at a school or district level in order to evaluate components for whole schools rather than putting all the pressure towards teachers on an individual level. I suppose they already have a system similar to that in regards to a lot of their materials, but on a completely different note than this site, budget allowing, schools should pre-approve more materials for teachers to use so that when the time comes to use something teachers already have a good idea of what to use.

Week Eight

A large part of the semester helped me to better understand technology that I had previously been less than informed on. One such thing would be PowerPoint. While I could probably have eventually figured it out on my own, it was one of those things that I never used, and therefore never really thought about learning. Now it is a program that I better understand and would be able to adapt for classroom use, and quite possibly use on a regular basis myself.
Another useful program that we discovered this semester was Google Docs. I haven't yet to figure out exactly how I'll use this in the classroom with younger students, but I can certainly see how I would be able to use it to converse with other teachers, to work on lessons or letters or proposals (oh my!) of some sort. The whole thing, documents as well as presentations and graphs, is just such a novel concept, it would be a shame not to integrate it in some way or another.
Inspiration was a software that I had used once or twice, but I had actually only used the Kidspiration version and just for one very limited assignment. It was far more useful to dive deeper into what it can do and find out how to incorporate my own photos and how to actually use all the buttons available. In the classroom, I hope to be able to use a program like this because it will help students have a motivation to learn, in that, it's more fun! Bloom's Taxonomy was also an interesting thought process for me. A lot of it was stuff that I have already, unintentionally done just because it felt right, so it's nice to have a validation of sorts. The deeper level thinking is an important tool for students to discover, so the actual concept of Blooms may even be something I eventually bring to the classroom and explain, mildly, to the students so they know more about how they are getting their own learning.

Week Seven

Webquests turned out to be far less complex and difficult than I had originally imagined. The only examples I had seen were the permanent type where a huge website was created solely for the quest. So when we began the project I was in horror at the amount of work that would be required and especially how difficult it would be to do with a group in such a short period of time. But once we got working on it, things easily fell into place. Maybe our final outcome wasn't the be all end all of webquests, and was certainly a temporary quest, as opposed to a permanent one, but the process was similar and therefore extraordinarily helpful for the future. I think that this activity is one of the most versatile of all programs/activities we have engaged in this semester thus far. Students can create these quests for themselves, for other students or to prove their knowledge in an area. Teachers can create quests for students to learn new material or even to reiterate previously learned knowledge. A quest can be complex and be aimed at high school students, or be simple and aimed at elementary students. The varying levels of difficulty possible make this type of activity easily accessible for students at all grade levels and therefore make it an awesome tool for educators. After doing readings and looking at several examples of webquests, both good and bad, it was even more clear that as far as these quests go, anything goes and the more creativity involved, the better! It was a good experience actually creating one and gives a lot of insight for the future.

Week 6

I've had to work with spreadsheets on a very limited basis throughout work and schooling. Usually, it's been limited to just filling in boxes that already had formulas put in or just putting in a few pieces of information and making an easy little graph. But now, actually being able to know the formulas and having done a bit more research on ways to use spreadsheets for educational purposes, it seems that programs like Excel bring on a million new uses. It's amazing that I let something so simple and useful go by unused and unexplored, but now seems to be the perfect time to be learning stuff like this. For use in the classroom, spreadsheets would be amazing for stuff like attendance and grading, but also for assignments in pretty much any subject.
I guess I kind of assume that finding the appropriate information online isn't a tough deal. Sure, it might be hard to find what you're looking for, but I'm no Internet/computer genius and I'm generally able to get things done. Though thinking about it, and thinking about the tips in this weeks reading, I suppose I can see where students would have a tougher time. Should things go the way I want them too, I'll be working with lower elementary grades, so their use of the Internet will be even more limited, but a teenager may find it even more difficult to find what is true, accurate and useful. A story that always gets me: the daughter (5th grade?) of a professor here at CSUSM was doing a report on octopuses and she of course Googled octopus, and found a site, about 4th on the list, about the endangered tree octopus. Now of course, this is a fictional site, but it is put together very well, professional looking and very misleading, especially for a younger student who may or may not know any better. I suppose this just goes to show that all the things Caulfield and Symans discuss in their article in order to assist students in obtaining the proper information.