Podcasts and streaming video

Session three

Another interesting session!
I had doubts about whether I had the time available to be involved in this project. Now after three weeks I am very pleased I signed up.

Already I have learned so much.

So far I have:

1. Acquired two pieces of equipment to help a colleague with her project- an eeepc and a digital photo frame
2. Set up this blog
3. Reviewed eportfolios and discovered the difference between blogs and eportfolios
4. Found out the advantages and challenges of podcasts versus streaming video from the institute server (I had planned to make podcasts but think I will start with streaming video)
5. Considered privacy issues with material held on the net - and thought about what is the best platform for me to use for my reflections - will continue with this blog but I am also using onenote in office 2007 - since it connects with my PDA and has good screen capture and live links - not so good for photos or videos - but they do not form a big part of my reflections as yet. I am interested in the levels of privacy eportfolios can provide
6. Set up delicious (query spelling) and google bookmarks so I can access them from any computer
7. Started to collect material for my first video
8. Started to plan for videos 2 & 3
9. Applied to have the smartboard software on my work computer - and next step my laptop - I am looking forward to creating interesting and interactive material for my classes next semester
10. Set up training for my colleagues on the use of the smartboard - trying to get them enthusiastic so we can apply for funding to have them in two more classrooms
11. Checked out other's blogs and posted comments
12. Requested purchase of a digital recorder to assist in this project
13. Found out how to play videos full screen from the server
14. Answered one of my questions from the first session - how much can we trust digital information? - not much - it is so easy to edit and change

We have been encouraged to use a three step reflective process (Bronwyn Hegarty 2007):

• Step 1: Take notice & describe the experience
• Step 2: Analyse the experience
• Step 3: Take Action

So what did I notice this afternoon? That creating digital material to support student learning is both interesting and time consuming. I enjoyed playing with the apple mac computer and seeing the seamless ease with which it can help with creating and editing sounds, images and movies. I can't wait to play. If I had not bought a new laptop at the beginning of this year I would have gone for a Mac.

Analysis: The Mac makes creating these digital materials more achievable without huge amounts of technical support - I will be able to do it myself (I think)

Action:

1. plan my first video - What is it going to be about? Who exactly is the audience? What do they want to know/learn? what is the best way of getting this message across? how can I make it interesting and engaging? beginning, middle and end?
2. make the sound recordings for the introduction and voice overs etc
3. Collect sound effects
4. video my own material to set the scene

Also:

• Check out teacher tube for useful videos
• Download Audacity software to PC to record and edit sounds
• Try out mac laptop for imovies and garageband
  

Videos, smart boards and play

I found the Digital Literacy session this afternoon really interesting. I particularly enjoyed seeing B....'s video and was taken by the fact that so much preparation went into it beforehand. He said - "You have to get everything down on paper first otherwise you will waste so much time".

I teach a class on creativity in education. Thursday is the “culminating event” - an exhibition of this semesters work. Students display their creative products and also the documentation of the processes they used to create them to their invided guests. D... is going to video the students and their projects. I will be able to use the video to show a vision of what is possible in my next classes. I need to think through what will benefit these future groups of students most. If they see the videos - what would be the questions they would like to ask about the project processes and products? I feel I have to put myself in the place of these future students to design the questions and yet keep it simple. Perhaps I can ask each group different questions so that I can cover more.

My initial plan had been for me to interview students directly; being in the frame with them - yet perhaps it would be better to provide the students with the questions and then for me to stay out of the way and let them answer in their own way.

Another alternative would be to use B...y's example. I found that his method of staying behind the camera, as he interviwed people in Otara market, very powerful – it gave a sense of intimacy with the subjects of his interviews – as if I was doing the interview myself. Perhaps afterwards I could edit in an introduction and conclusion where I front up to the camera – to create the narrative, and a sense of coherence and continuity. It suddenly seems a much bigger project than I had thought. Help! There is only a day to think about this.

Preparation must be the key to so much of this digital teaching and learning (as it is with any teaching and learning interaction/intervention); thinking through what we want to present, the learning we hope will take place, and then making decisions about the best means of doing this. Which of these wonderful tools at our disposal will be the most appropriate?

I expect these tools to add value to what I do in the classroom. If I am going to invest time in using them to create materials for students, then it has to be productive time for all of us – teacher and students.

I have been very engaged with the videos on TED talks in the last year (http://www.ted.com/). I have shown and discussed some in class and have put several of them on Blackboard for students to access. I find the format – a restriction to 20 minutes per talk and the focus on interesting and thought provoking topics - very powerful. This site has been a source of inspiration for my own project to capture relevant material for students through audio and video.

I particularly want to bring our local experts into the sphere of our classroom discussion more easily than the current “guest lecture” strategy. When you ask the same people repeatedly, eventually you can overextend their goodwill and potentially lose their expertise. The guest lecturer process also occupies a large amount of time in the classroom – with introductions, thanks et cetera. There is also a limit to how many people you can ask. For me there is also an equity issue – whose voice is being heard? Voices, viewpoints and topics are limited when you can only bring a few people into the classroom. I hope therefore, that I can bring more diversity into the voices that students hear. I also want to ensure that student’s own voices are captured as part of this process. I do not want to replace guest speakers entirely; the interactive process is very important. It is an AND.

I also want to create my own snippets of video and audio – what are the key points for each of my teaching sessions? What is it that I want students to remember and engage with? I can see that this is becoming a huge project and I see it as evolving over a long period of time. My focus on the next few weeks of the action research project is making sure that I keep my project achievable.

My next reflection is to rmeind myself that play is an important learning process for all of us, not just children. Sometimes we forget how much fun it can be just to play. When Dave invited us to try the smart board – the energy level of the group increased and there was a buzz of excitement as people tried out its features and explored just what it could do. I already use the smart board a little in my classes and now, instead of simply using the notepad to record what students do in the classroom – I plan is to use it to create material before class.

This links to another ongoing reflection I havehad; “Death by PowerPoint”. This began at the end of last year when I attended Mike Scadden’s workshop on brain based learning. He put the phrase out there and I have returned to it many times since then. I introduced this topic to the group this afternoon and we had a useful discussion on how PowerPoint encourages/confines us to present in very linear, logical ways. It seems to me that when we used overhead transparencies it was much easier to change a class or presentation in response to student’s questions, interests, and misunderstandings. It didn’t take long to pull out an overhead from a folder from future or previous classes – even one form a different course (though it took me a long time after class to put my folder back together). It is not quite so simple to do this with PowerPoint – that important in the moment reflection and response is curtailed. An additional concern is when I place our presentations on Blackboard and students print these off before class, some students express dismay when I try to change the order – I am being socialised by the students to keep to this linear plan. I wonder if I prepare classes using notepad I will be able to encourage interaction and discussion in more interesting ways.

I still have many questions - even more than last week – yet I feel am beginning to think through the answers to some of them. I am left with one main questions as I go home tonight – how can I use digital literacy to add value?

Digital thoughts

I have just joined a small digital information literacy research project. We met together for the first time this afternoon and began our adventure.

I am thinking about what digital information literacy is? Where will it take me in the future as a teacher? What will I learn and perhaps how will I influence that future? As a digital immigrant rather than a digital native, to what extent will my ventures into the digital world be clumsy and culturally inept? - and will this matter? - and who would judge?

To what extent is the digital age creating a new elite of those with access to computers and broadband? The new eeePCs and other mini laptops may go some way to address the digital divide - will it be far enough? Who is excluded when as teachers we create more digital information and learning materials? Who is empowered? How do we address these potential inequities? How and with whom do we advocate for students to obtain laptops and broadband internet access for example? Is it good enough simply to have computers on site in learning institutions or do we need to do more so students have these tools in their own hands in their own places not just ours?

In New Zealand it may be realistic to expect that the majority of students will have these tools within the next couple of years. It has already changed so much even in the last five years. But what about other countries? Is it increasing the divisions between the haves and the have nots?

What if by increasing our reliance on digital information we are missing out on other important ways of knowing that depend on personal encounters with people, places, things and events?

I am curious about how the web has the potential to be a vehicle by which we create our own reality either deliberately, for example through this blog, or inadvertantly through the searches we do on line, the materials we purchase or view, and the interactions we have with others in this etheric community.

I was extemely interested in the thought of the distributed nature of the web, its interconnectedness rather than logical heirarcy - I feel I need to know more about how this works.

I am curous about trust and truth and to what extent this really matters. How much can I believe in what I see and find? How I can evaluate content and discourse.

I enjoyed listening to others discuss their potential projects in the group. I saw the enthusiasm in our faces, heard the hesitancy in the confessions of what we did not know yet and wanted to find out. In the sense that everything was possible - yet in a 10 week time frame? I am pleased that others are thinking about similar projects and reassured about the amount of support available.

I wondered how much more I learned from sitting and watching and listening to others in the group rather than just reading and interacting on line.

I am certainly looking forward to the next 9 weeks. I doubt that I will find the answers to all the questions I have posed here, yet the exploration of even my own simple project will be fascinating and lead me on an unpredicatable journer of discovery.