I think that video has a place in the classroom. By this I mean videos that others mean, and videos that could be made in the classroom by students. I would like to teach both special education and music, and I could see uses in both of those areas.
One way video was used in a special ed. lesson plan was where the teachers made up a virtual supermarket that was interactive that students could use to practice shopping for a list of groceries before heading out to the real store. That was a great idea. Another idea would be to teach a student how to ride a city bus, before actually leaving the classroom.The teacher could video the inside of the bus and explain how to pay the fare and how to request a stop at the end of their journey. Knowing these things could really help allay any fears students might have. These two examples show how students could be taught community living skills, which they will need in order to be more independent after they graduate high school.
For music classes, videos of groups playing, such as jazz trios or symphony orchestras would be very educational. Listening to music is great all by itself, but adding video to the experience adds more dimensions and would help the visual learner to focus on the music better. Making a video of their groups playing or singing would be great, too, so they could see their spring concert performance.Performing groups would probably really enjoy seeing how they looked to the audience. And if anything remarkable happened during the performance, like the conductor falling off the potium, or a student disappearing from the back riser only to reappear seconds later, uninjured, the students would enjoy that,too. (I've seen both of those things at Reading High School concerts!).
One thing is, I would need more practice if I were the one producing the video of either scenario!
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Group Video Project
At first, I was unwilling to participate in the project of making a video. I didn't understand how to use the movie maker program. I felt like every time I was looking at my keyboard to click on something, I should have been looking up at the Smartboard, and vice versa. The media lab is not a good classroom in terms of a facility to teach and learn in---the Smartboard is not easily viewed by all students, it is noisy and crowded and uncomfortable. So, there were a lot of negatives and I felt totally overwhelmed by the time we were supposed to pick groups. That is something I really dislike having to do. Everybody immediately turned to somebody else and I would have to insinuate myself into someone else's group. The whole situation led to a huge menopausal meltdown of rather embarrassing proportions.
Fortunately for me, Deanna and Julie invited me into their group. By this time, being overwhelmed and exhausted and exasperated in every way, I was not prepared to sit down and figure out the project from start to finish in a specific way. We did leave the media lab and go into the library to discuss the project. That really was a good thing--to get away from the noise of the other groups. I found that I had a role to play in the video, that is, acquisition of the music ( I was able to use music that my son Tim had written), and being the actor, and supplying a few props. Julie and Deanna had different roles. Deanna was the director and storyboard maker, and Julie did the actual filming and understood the editing program pretty well.
The day of the making of the video went well--the taping of the video went as planned and Julie and Deanna did an excellent job of finding different camera angles and making sure they got all the shots necessary according to the storyboard layout. We then went back to the media lab and set about editing the video and adding the music to the finished video. I thought that the editing was difficult in spots. I did help a little bit with that task, but needed guidance in order to help! By the end, we were all very tired, and couldn't get the music to go onto the video. Julie finished it the next day with Ms. Mislevy's help, which was great. Deanna and I were very relieved tohear that all was well, and the project was completed.
There were two very nice outcomes to the project. The first was that we were successful in our quest--a one-minute video that worked well! The other was finding out, to our delight, that our group worked very well together. We each played our part and complemented each other. I personally was very relieved not to have to be responsible for the technological part of it. To use the movie maker program, I would need a lot more practice with a "cheat sheet" next to me to remind me what to do next and how to fix mistakes, and how to save everything.
Fortunately for me, Deanna and Julie invited me into their group. By this time, being overwhelmed and exhausted and exasperated in every way, I was not prepared to sit down and figure out the project from start to finish in a specific way. We did leave the media lab and go into the library to discuss the project. That really was a good thing--to get away from the noise of the other groups. I found that I had a role to play in the video, that is, acquisition of the music ( I was able to use music that my son Tim had written), and being the actor, and supplying a few props. Julie and Deanna had different roles. Deanna was the director and storyboard maker, and Julie did the actual filming and understood the editing program pretty well.
The day of the making of the video went well--the taping of the video went as planned and Julie and Deanna did an excellent job of finding different camera angles and making sure they got all the shots necessary according to the storyboard layout. We then went back to the media lab and set about editing the video and adding the music to the finished video. I thought that the editing was difficult in spots. I did help a little bit with that task, but needed guidance in order to help! By the end, we were all very tired, and couldn't get the music to go onto the video. Julie finished it the next day with Ms. Mislevy's help, which was great. Deanna and I were very relieved tohear that all was well, and the project was completed.
There were two very nice outcomes to the project. The first was that we were successful in our quest--a one-minute video that worked well! The other was finding out, to our delight, that our group worked very well together. We each played our part and complemented each other. I personally was very relieved not to have to be responsible for the technological part of it. To use the movie maker program, I would need a lot more practice with a "cheat sheet" next to me to remind me what to do next and how to fix mistakes, and how to save everything.
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Caffeine Awareness
I am aware of caffeine, especially since participating in a group project to make a short movie about it. I am happy with the way it turned out, and happy to have worked with my two intrepid classmates, Deanna and Julie. And thanks to Michelle Mislevy for all of the technical assistance,too!
Here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZegmu4ppYg
Here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZegmu4ppYg
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Copyrights and such
The copyrights topic was interesting and the game in class was fun. The most interesting topic within copyrights was the lawsuits over fair use and how arbitrary the decisions seemed to be. A couple of them had outcomes that were difficult to predict!
The only copyright violations I have witnessed were in the music department the year I subbed for an instrumental teacher long term. There was a lot of photocopying being done for ensemble groups. I actually made my own arrangements for smaller group ensembles to avoid buying music and to avoid copyright issues. Other than that, I have seen the occasional copy of a music cd floating around. But, there is a question whether that was a violation or not, since it could have been a single use copy of a cd they own.
Outside of school, I haven't seen much in the way of copyright infringement, since we have discussed the issue in our home and are particular about the question. It was part of the training of the children in morality--just because you CAN do something wrong and get away with it, does that mean you SHOULD? And now that my youngest son is in music school as a composer, I'm sure he pays attention to the issue! Not to mention, he will be impacted by others decisions in that regard should he be blessed with success in his field.
Other than in our home and substitute teaching, and being a student , I don't have occasion to come across copyright issues. I don't know other people's standards or how they behave in their own homes. I've heard about being able to buy bootleg movies, but haven't seen that for myself.
I do think it is important to teach students to respect copyrights. It goes along with teaching about computers and their use, so can be naturally incorporated into lessons. I would teach about the issue when it comes up in the lessons, and talk about the reasons behind the laws. Most students do have empathy for others, and if they understand how bootlegging affects people, they may choose to do the right thing. In school, though, I would enforce the copyright laws and also model them for the students by being careful myself to abide by the laws. The issue of ignorance of the law not being an excuse for breaking the law is another one that is a valuable lesson, since that goes for all laws.
Specifically, I would, in music class, model giving original copies to students. We would discuss the issue in a lesson where students compose their own piece. We woud talk about how they can copyright their songs and how they would feel if someone just took their music and used it without permission.
These lessons go along with the first ISTE standard letter b: create original works as a means of personal or group expression. Also, the second Standard, Communication and Collaboration, would go along with that. The third Standard letter b mentions ethically using information. Standard five talks about practicing legal and ethical behavior. It turns out that the ISTE Standards are in tune with the copyright issue!
As far as the text about technology use is concerned, I thought the conclusions made perfect sense and were predictable. Even down to the difference in the sexes and how men and women view and use technology, it all made sense. Men are more about playing games, and women are the communicators. Just like in the old and oldest days, that tends to be how men and women are different from each other. The fact that it is taking more time than many people thought to really incorporate technology in the learning process is interesting. So far, when this was written, technology was used in higher education more for communication and administrative duties and less for actual learning in the classroom. In fact, students do not prefer online courses by a long shot! It would be interesting to see whether there has been any progress in the past 6 years; one would hope it doesn't take hundreds of years!
In fact, if I were going to give a survey now, I would ask some of the same questions to see the progression. I would also ask if students do more with mobile devices than they did even six years ago. I would also want to know how many students feel a compulsion to keep up with the latest gadgets, out of adademic necessity.
The only copyright violations I have witnessed were in the music department the year I subbed for an instrumental teacher long term. There was a lot of photocopying being done for ensemble groups. I actually made my own arrangements for smaller group ensembles to avoid buying music and to avoid copyright issues. Other than that, I have seen the occasional copy of a music cd floating around. But, there is a question whether that was a violation or not, since it could have been a single use copy of a cd they own.
Outside of school, I haven't seen much in the way of copyright infringement, since we have discussed the issue in our home and are particular about the question. It was part of the training of the children in morality--just because you CAN do something wrong and get away with it, does that mean you SHOULD? And now that my youngest son is in music school as a composer, I'm sure he pays attention to the issue! Not to mention, he will be impacted by others decisions in that regard should he be blessed with success in his field.
Other than in our home and substitute teaching, and being a student , I don't have occasion to come across copyright issues. I don't know other people's standards or how they behave in their own homes. I've heard about being able to buy bootleg movies, but haven't seen that for myself.
I do think it is important to teach students to respect copyrights. It goes along with teaching about computers and their use, so can be naturally incorporated into lessons. I would teach about the issue when it comes up in the lessons, and talk about the reasons behind the laws. Most students do have empathy for others, and if they understand how bootlegging affects people, they may choose to do the right thing. In school, though, I would enforce the copyright laws and also model them for the students by being careful myself to abide by the laws. The issue of ignorance of the law not being an excuse for breaking the law is another one that is a valuable lesson, since that goes for all laws.
Specifically, I would, in music class, model giving original copies to students. We would discuss the issue in a lesson where students compose their own piece. We woud talk about how they can copyright their songs and how they would feel if someone just took their music and used it without permission.
These lessons go along with the first ISTE standard letter b: create original works as a means of personal or group expression. Also, the second Standard, Communication and Collaboration, would go along with that. The third Standard letter b mentions ethically using information. Standard five talks about practicing legal and ethical behavior. It turns out that the ISTE Standards are in tune with the copyright issue!
As far as the text about technology use is concerned, I thought the conclusions made perfect sense and were predictable. Even down to the difference in the sexes and how men and women view and use technology, it all made sense. Men are more about playing games, and women are the communicators. Just like in the old and oldest days, that tends to be how men and women are different from each other. The fact that it is taking more time than many people thought to really incorporate technology in the learning process is interesting. So far, when this was written, technology was used in higher education more for communication and administrative duties and less for actual learning in the classroom. In fact, students do not prefer online courses by a long shot! It would be interesting to see whether there has been any progress in the past 6 years; one would hope it doesn't take hundreds of years!
In fact, if I were going to give a survey now, I would ask some of the same questions to see the progression. I would also ask if students do more with mobile devices than they did even six years ago. I would also want to know how many students feel a compulsion to keep up with the latest gadgets, out of adademic necessity.
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