Final Project Reflection: 18 October 2009

My final project grew out of our (coetail) work doing digital storytelling and the Grade 6 Archaeology unit. As part of the unit, we do a week long dig in the classroom. With the help of ISB support staff, we turn the Humanities classrooms into dig sites. We bury a diverse range of artifacts in two giant sand boxes in the classrooms to re-create two villages or homes.

Each site contains a variety of 'domestic' artifacts relating to cooking, hunting/defence, religion, commerce and art. Students participate in the dig in rotating jobs, including digging, sifting, cataloguing and recording. Each day's dig is preceded and followed by a discussion and analysis of the finds. Emphasis is on forming a cohesive theory about the previous 'inhabitants' of the site, their way of life and culture. The theory must be based on the evidence and teachers frequently ask, "Why do you think that?" in order to force students to explain their rationale for their opinion.

This habit of mind (0f using evidence to support an opinion) is one of the primary goals of the grade 6 curriculum and the dig provides a unique opportunity to make 'discoveries' and articulate a point of view based upon them. Students often have differing points of view, but, despite that, often see commonalities in their interpretations of individual artifacts. As they discuss, they find out where they differ and endeavour to explain why they, personally, are right.

The dig traditionally culminates with a common assignment/assessment of a magazine-style article about an aspect of the dig. Students choose from a variety of article formats that tell the story of the people who inhabited the site and/or the story of the dig itself. During the dig, students take still photos and (this year I asked them to include) video to document the progress and process of the dig. During the digital storytelling part of our course I realized I could combine the video and stills to articulate many of the same ideas and complement the article.

The digital storytelling/film-making assignment allows students to collaborate with each other to meet many of the same goals as the magazine assignment. The collaborative aspect is particularly appealing because it puts students in a situation in which they once again have to discuss and defend their opinions. As they write their scripts for the project, they refine their opinions and learn to express them concisely. Most importantly they automatically use evidence to support their viewpoint in the form of the audiovisual images from the dig. This step reinforces their thinking process. My final project is a sample/model assignment for students.

Screencast It!

Screen casts lend themselves to any 'procedural' instructions for computer use in the classroom. As a language teacher whose goal is to use the target language as much as possible in during class time, this is particularly appealing. Demonstrating how to do something on the computer while using Spanish is incredibly difficult for students to follow. Even with the smartboard and a physical demonstration, it is very rare that more than half the class remembers the steps necessary to complete a task. A screen cast, however, allows students to view instructions at their own pace multiple times. This is an incalculably huge advantage.

Even without the language aspect of the Spanish classroom, I can't begin to count the number of times of times I have been pulled away from, for example, helping a student improve their writing in order to help a student upload a photo/save to the server/record audio etc. With a library of clips (time to compile one) explaining the common 'hows' on my blog, I would be able to focus on core learning.

The best part of this would be increased independence on the part of students. There are already many questions I don't answer but instead direct students to answer themselves by reading classroom text. Referring them to screen casts would be another step on the same path to independent resolution of simple problems. There is nothing so gratifying as watching a student figure out how to answer his/her own questions.

Finally, at many points in the K-12 curricula, we ask students to engage in procedural writing. Screen casting is an excellent opportunity to integrate procedural writing and technology use. Throw in a video camera and a student could do a screen cast of just about anything. The visual aspect of a screen cast would ensure that students do not leave out key steps in their explanations (something they inevitably do when they write).

7 October 2009: The Explosion of Video

The availability of video has indeed exploded. Just the venues of finding videos are hard to keep track of, let alone the videos themselves.

It seems that, with a bit of patience, one can find just about anything needed for the classroom. A perfect example is an old resource the Grade 6 team has used in the past - The Voyage of the Mimi. Originally an old PBS show (Ben Affleck way back in the 1980s) about archaeology, the school purchased a copy on VHS back in the day. As VHS players became scarce, the tapes were transferred to disc but with poor quality. When we discussed it in our team meeting I looked it up on youtube and, not surprisingly, someone has uploaded just about every episode.

Because of the web, the Mimi (and tons of other potential resources) are available world wide. What's more, with a bit of effort I can get my very own copy of the video by kicking or zamzaring. This is usually the case for just about any curricular idea. The challenge may be coming up with the perfect search query (or wading through tons of annoying video) but the material is out there.

Perhaps most importantly, as teachers we can easily capture moments, speeches, events etc. for classroom discussion and analysis. We can view them repeatedly without a whole other intermediary device other than the one already on our desks. Most importantly we can USE those same things to create something new. Converted to .mov format, students can import video clips, add audio tracks, additional footage, subtitles to become story-tellers or documentarians.

The web also gives the opportunity to share work with a global audience. It can be shared for evaluation, for an audience or for collaboration. The biggest obstacle to this kind of work is time and tools. Working with video is, to my mind, still the most cumbersome technology related task in education. Anyone who can streamline that process will be a hero to millions.