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?