Week+3+Monday+Jan+25


 * Making a Movie**

ETA: In this class, we worked in groups to make a movie. We took video footage with a video camera --then used Format Factory to change AVI to WMV, which Windows Movie Maker can use --then we worked on the movie in Windows Movie Maker

I have just been working on that movie a bit more and I'm so proud of how I fixed it up! --added soundtrack for opening and closing credits --added transitions --you can see a hiccup in film, but that's where I cut out some "ums" and dead air

I am amazed at how easy it is to add in a soundtrack! I edited the length of the soundtrack to fit the film I needed...the storyboard layout of WMM is so helpful.

Bruce, I am not sure if this is going to work! Agh! The movie is so cute, but it's on my computer account at school, and this links to that.




 * Understanding the Digital Generation 2: Engaging the Digital Generation

Walk the Walk**

The author of UDG 2 suggests that educators try out a bunch of online applications that their DN (Digital Native) students use frequently, such as Skype, blogs, Instant Messaging, and so on. I use all of those, which felt reassuring, though there are several items on the list I still need to try.

I did go to teachertube, which I've been interested in for awhile but rarely visit, and I listened to this helpful video about why there are seasons. I am interested in this topic because I remember that when I was about 12 I thought that there were seasons because the earth's orbit was oval rather than circular; I thought it was winter when the earth was far from the sun. Someone at some point explained to me that the tilt of earth was what caused seasons.

[|What Causes Seasons, from Teachertube]

I would like to make some teachertube videos about literary topics.




 * Engaging the DG**

The article makes many excellent points. For example, it focuses on the importance of motivating students. Students will not learn unless they are motivated.

This was always one of my main challenges when I was teaching before the B. Ed. I had never had any training in how to motivate students; what I knew best was my subject, and I hoped the students would be as interested in it as I was. Well, usually they weren't.

I also like the point that we tend to teach to the top third of the class, and let the rest go. I cared about all the students, but it's true that graduate school contributed to my tendency to focus on the best students, the kinds of students who were most like me. The assumption I soaked up from graduate school was that these students counted most because they were motivated and intelligent. They were the university bound or the graduate studies bound or whatever. The idea that an educator has at least as much obligation to the students who are in the other 2/3 of the class was not really stressed. It was a "meritocratic" kind of mentality, the equivalent of a phys ed teacher focusing on the students who might make the teams and become athletes.

I like this passage: [C]onsider the language of the test questions. What kinds of verbs do we see? Verbs like // identify, // // name, list, de!ne, explain, describe // and other verbs that primarily re!ect low level recall and regurgitation of facts. We don’t see verbs such as //analyze, synthesize, apply, infer, interpolate.//

This call to ask students for higher-order skills is a very pertinent one. Jukes does not really take this anywhere in this article, however, or explain how education which uses technology would employ these skills more than traditional methods.

I also liked the point that students will learn a lot more from discovering things themselves than if teachers just handed knowledge to them in complete packages, and his call to teachers to make what is being taught relevant to the students, and to connect it to things they already know, because relevance and a connection to prior knowledge are essential to having knowledge "stick."


 * Having Doubts

Ian Jukes** critiques traditional education for banning facebook, cell phones, and ipods from the classroom; he writes that students are immersed in these tools outside of class and so what happens in class is boring to them. I had some trouble with this point, because I don't see why the classroom needs to be the same as the world where the students spend their free time. I agree that the classroom needs to use more multimedia tools and methods, but I do think that facebook and texting are, most of the time, a form of diversion and entertainment. They are important to students' lives, but that does not mean they have to come inside the classroom. I suppose that if one found a way to use texting and facebook in an assignment it could help motivate students, but I know from watching fellow B. Ed. students that they turn on facebook when they are not really engaged in the classroom. It's a way to tune out.


 * Understanding the Fervour**

I watched the video with Ian Jukes again and I understand a bit better the stridency of his tone. He is concerned that education is preparing kids for "our past, not their future," and he argues that for them to be successful, they need to have developed their right brain abilities to the fullest rather than their left brain, top to bottom, left to right ones.

In my opinion the really prepared person is the one who maximizes both kinds of thinking. I would like, however, to learn more about right brain thinking.