It's Not TV Anymore: Designing Digital Video for Learning and Assessment

This article talks about video being a powerful technology for learning. Video has helped examine patterns of a classroom interaction, helped teachers reflect on their own teaching styles by revealing strengths and weaknesses, and also videos are able to catch more than just the naked eye and are able to see an entire classroom at any given time.

Designed videos help students learn and can support learning in many ways. I remember watching a video in either elementary school or high school and the entire class laughing at the outdated clothes and characters in the videos. The message was usually camouflaged by the laughable production and it was a shame because students in the classrooms today have more success producing modern videos which have messages that actually reach the students and are obviously enjoyed by their classmates. Students in today's classrooms are more inline with what is "cool" and know what their audience wants because they are their own audience. "To design an effective video, it is important to have a clear target..." (Schwartz & Hartman)Who understands students better then themselves?

There are four broad classes of learning outcomes; Seeing, Doing, Engaging, and Saying. Each outcome has different approaches to achieve learning. For example, Doing has two approaches, Attitude and Skills. Attitudes is an example of people willing to learn by mimicking other people behaviors that they choose to inherit, whereas Skills require intentional effort and practice on the learners part. Also, each learning outcome has types of behaviors people will exhibit if they have learned. If students have "learned the Doing" their manner and performance will reflect they have changed and learned. Finally, there are successful ways to make certain videos that will be relevant to each outcome. Step-by-step videos and Demonstration videos are great ways for "Doing" to become learned through video.

This article has so much useful information to teach by use of design videos. I remember the pure excitement I had when I was a student when the teacher announced that we would be watching a video. It changed the class up and gave students a break from being lectured and given a little entertainment. An educational video is like sugar coating learning where the whole class can be excited to watch and learn at the same time.



"It is not Television Anymore: Designing Digital Video for Learning and Assessment"
https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=1kx8ePzHzzI1Ri0m8Ppv1gyiGbuefykLYD1JCubEQEWyO1VYLJswpz2JBDP_V&hl=en&authkey=CJuB_80E

Learning and Leading with Technology: Blogging

Blogging is a great way for student-teacher, teacher-teacher, and student-student communication. There are several different kinds of blogs and we will start with individual blogs. Individual blogs have been around for some time now and has allowed people to use the Internet as a journal, a way to respond to other individuals, and a way to post resources from the new fad diets and top secret recipes to where to find a great handyman in your neighborhood. An online diary allows people to produce daily reflections and allows them to make them available to anyone who is interested. In a classroom environment, blogging would turn a normal assignment into a collaborative learning task and has been proven to make students excited to learn and excited to participate in the class activities. There is something quite therapeutic about unloading thoughts online in a journal format that others can comment on if they wish to do so. Instead of feeling shy about standing up in front of class and stumbling on works and getting red in the face, students are now able to blog. Another plus is the ability to look at the work of your peers and getting a better understanding of what the teacher wants and expects of you.

Classroom Blogging is being used in many classrooms today and helps build communication and collaboration among students. In schools where com putters are limited, students can use computer labs to blog or sign up for classroom computer time. Some students have access to computers at home and can blog for homework assignments. Teachers were finding that students were going above and beyond the assignments and were helping their other peers out with attack strategies and techniques that helped then conquer their assignments. Students were learning from each other while connecting to one and other online. “As students communicate in the blog, they question and challenge each other’s thinking, leading to deeper and more meaningful interaction than previously afforded during individual journaling.”

A Collaborative Blog is one in which students from one class work with students from another class, either within the same building or from another school. This allows for students to mentor other students and learn from each other. What a cool concept! It’s like a pen pal but the gratification comes much quicker and you do not need to wait weeks to hear back from your pen pal. “The motivation of the students, based on their excitement and enthusiasm levels, seemed to grow even more when a new group of children was brought into the blogging experience.”

In a workplace setting where professionals are isolated from each other for the majority of the day, effective use of a blog is one method of bringing educators together, this is called Staff Development Blogging. As I learned in Education 350, becoming an excellent educator means taking great ideas from all over the education world and using them in your own class setting. Staff Development Blogging is a great way for teachers to share stories of both success and failure and hope that other teachers will either learn from their own mistakes or benefit from their experiences.

Understanding Rubrics

I really enjoyed this article about rubrics. Rubrics are a great way for teachers to communicate with their students exactly what is expected. Rubrics improve students performance by making teachers' expectations clear and by showing the students how to meet these expectations. Rubrics are used as a self guide and allows students to become increasingly able to spot and solve problems on their own and make improvements when all criteria isn't met.

Rubrics also allow students to do the best work that they are capable of doing. Teachers get a good idea of which students are stronger in certain areas and having a rubric allows a teacher to accommodate those students who need a little extra help. One of the tips on designing a rubric is to avoid unnecessary negative language. Showing the students exactly what you want instead of what you don't want will help them go back and revise their work and make it the best work with the guidelines that you gave them. Anything that helps a student understand exactly what is expected of them will make their lives easier as well as the teachers and parents lives. I'm glad I chose this article to read. I know rubrics will help me help my students!

IVE Videos

This was a great website to see what creative potential students of all ages have. The first video that I watched was called the "Yes No Recycling Show", and it was created by La Costa Heights Elementary School. This video was creative, entertaining, and most importantly informative! I recycle at home, work, and out in public and sometimes I am confused to what can go in the recycling bin and what can not. What a great idea to make a catchy music video to teach people of all ages the yes and nos of recycling.

The other video that I watched was "Words Hurt". This video was created by Mission Middle in Escondido. The message was "Words hurt. Think before you speak." This video had an impact on me and I can see the power behind the message benefiting a lot of students and teaching them how words can strongly effect some more than others. We should all be more positive towards one and other and really think before we speak.

IVE videos are a fun way for students to get a message out in a friendly and competitive way. I was pleasantly surprised at the technological ability of K-12 graders and it would be fun for a class to enter their video and make an impact on people in this community.

Computer Science Education: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

I found much of this article hard to follow. I am not a computer person myself, so when talking about all the different language and code that goes along with programing, I found it had little relevance to my amount of computer use. What I did find interesting is how far computers have come in such a short period of time. To think back to the computers I used when I was in elementary school twenty years ago, seems like such foreign machinery. But then again, every time new technology comes out, I find myself just getting used to the old version.

The second part of the article talks about the importance of computer technology in the classrooms, the lack of resources, how technology relates to curriculum, professional development, and what education needs in order for the high tech sector to remain a key contributor to the financial health of the United States. Most of the information was repetitive and the main point was that "a strong computer science program at the high school level is the first step along the path to ensuring that this industry remains competitive enough to play a leading role among nations". I think that computer science classes should be a part of elementary to high school curriculum, but only the basics should be taught and the students who show interest and have a knack for the computer sciences should have the opportunity to take their knowledge to higher levels. We have accomplished so much with technology and with such a small population of computer savvy people who are responsible. I don't feel that every student should be responsible for programming and code writing and we should let the techies be techies and the rest of us should be able to learn what we need from them.

The Beginner's Guide to Interactive Virtual Field Trips By Jan Zanetis

I just read the article on Interactive Virtual Field Trips(VFT), and found myself even more excited to become an educator then ever before. The article basically explained the newest way to take a classroom on an adventure that will impact many of the students' lives. I am amazed at how much has changed since I was in elementary school, twenty years ago, and I am excited that students have a chance to experience things that they might never have had a chance to do, except in school. The VFT create opportunities to learn first hand and to learn in a way that is much more exciting than just opening up a text book and reading about the lesson for the day. I wanted to do a little further research on the VFT and went to www.puppets.org, and I experienced five minutes of a class trip to the Center for Puppetry Arts. My experience was filled with joy as I witnessed the students enthusiastic faces as well as the attention that was being paid to the Virtual on screen teacher. All of the students were engaged and had the chance to learn about puppets and learn how to make puppets from the puppet masters themselves! I couldn't help but think of the endless possibilities that students of today and the future had at their finger tips.

My hope, beyond the VFT, is that students still get out and see as much as the world as the can. The VFT are a great way for students to learn about anything, but to actually go to a site and witness, lets say the Great Pyramids of Egypt, is an amazing experience and can not even compare to just seeing it on a giant screen in a schools' tech lab. Kids today are so obsessed with technology that they forget to go outside and just play and be kids. Obviously, I would rather see, as a student, the Great Pyramids on a screen instead of just reading about it, and the VFT is a great way to engage students and really learn them about any subject. It is great that so many organizations have signed on to being a part of the academic world outside of their own world, and by just experiencing the one puppet website, I know that VFT are having a huge impact on students today and again I think about the possibilities, and they really are endless.

BLOG Speak Up 2009

The most important fact of this article is that the Speak Up organization is dedicated to ensuring today’s students are well prepared to be tomorrows innovators, leaders and engaged citizens, but it was discovered that the students themselves are taking matters into their own hands by adapting the tools they have become accustomed to in their personal life for learning. Students are no longer waiting for their schools or teachers to provide them with the implements or applications necessary to get ahead; instead they are on a personal quest to define their own learning. Students are using social networks to connect to other students across the world for collaborations, information sharing, and tutoring. Also, students are using online assessments and tests to do self-evaluations, and even taking online classes to just learn for the sake of learning. Students are finding ways to self-educate beyond the knowledge of their teachers and reaching out to experts in the certain fields and corresponding with them online. All in all, students are creating their own future and taking opportunities into their own hands.

I think it is extremely important to have competent teachers in the classrooms to motivate students and to facilitate them with the tools to learn, but a classroom can work both ways. As a future educator, I would be grateful to learn from my students and would encourage them to go outside of the box and find whatever answers they are searching for. I would never look at it like they were going over my head but maybe even taking a step further. In my first education class, 350, I learned to as educators we should take others ideas and build on them, and if that is what students today want to do… All the power to them!

Now for the students who don’t have a voice, Speak Up is very important to open the eyes of many people and see that education should be at the top of any list of importance in our nation. Now, a lot of students will not be as motivated as others and take online classes or assessments, but if all students had the ability to reach out to other students and ask for help on homework, they might feel more inclined to do it instead of not wanting to be “the only one in class” who couldn’t figure it out. The only other issue to not having access to computers are the students who have access but it is limited due to the fact a lot of schools block social networks, you tube, and other sites that students use today to learn about the world around them. My only thought of this is that the schools should have an all open access and if parents reject that then each individual parent can decide how much information their own kids can have access to, so that other students aren’t getting penalized for having open parents.