In the article "Media in the classroom" in the section "Silent Explosion", the article states that in 1991, 81% of teachers in a California school district has access to video cameras and 54.8% of the teachers have students using the cameras in hands-on activities.
This is hard for me to believe. I am sure that most teachers used video/video players in their classrooms in 1991, but I was surprised to see how many had access to cameras and allowed the students to use them. I would be interested to find out what percentage of teachers in this same CA district use cameras today.
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The "Multimedia Journalism" article was a little confusing at first. The beginning of the article discussed the current trends at several journalism schools to move from teaching a technology laiden curriculum to an old school journalism view. Later in the article, though, it did explain the "whys" of this view. Remember the Lay's Potato Chip commerical? "You can't eat just one." The article applies this idea to teaching technology in journalism. How can you teach just one way of doing something? The article questions, "Should html be taught or coding?" The article suggests that the students need an awareness of the tools so that they might be able to choose the one appropriate for the job.
The "Blended Learning in K-12" article was really interesting for me. It made me think about how a few years ago, I was against showing most videos in the classroom unless they were really good. Why? Because there was always so much extra stuff in them leading up to the good stuff. Now, with the idea of video clips, teachers can find a video on United Streaming or PowerMedia Plus and show only the portion of the video that fits their needs. These portsion of clips can be quickly found and are easy to use.
I especially enjoyed reading about the positive effects of broadcasting on a student body. Since the first of the year, my school as begun a student run "Live Announcements" program. I helped them get it started and now they are running it all on their own. They have learned so much in the process and are now training other students on the system. One of the biggest problems I have had is too many student volunteers to help.
This is amazing to me. Our school does not even have one video camera.
I'm moving to California!
The article about "Living Books" within the section about Multimedia and Learning made me think of another site I'm familiar with called:
Children’s Books Online: The Rosetta Project
http://www.childrensbooksonline.org/
This site offers children's books online and read in several different languages. A must see for early childhood educators!
-In reference to the article in week 2 reading, I liked the article but was disappointed b/c none of the websites mentioned seem to still be active. None worked for me. Did anyone else have success w/the sites mentioned?
Blended learning is really what I believe will soon become the norm in education. It has already begun.
I've noticed in all of the reading so far that a lot of the action as far as implementing technology in the classroom and in society has really taken off in places like CA(West), MA(East), IL(Midwest), and overseas...no surprise. Until taking this course I never realized that digital stories have been around since around 2000 (it seems, don't quote me).
I agreed with many ideas in the "Media in the classroom" article. In 2008, I think that it is generally accepted that video can be used across the curriculum but this article was written in 1994. I started teaching in 1994. I remember trying to catch clips of video by recording them on my VCR. I also remember borrowing a camcorder to video tape student compositions. When it took me a day to return it, I was scolded because it was used to tape the basketball games. I remember being shocked that the district owned only 1 camcorder!
I felt many of my fellow teacher thought using video of any kind was just for "fun" and not educational. Those days have really changed with PowerMediaPlus. Video is used as a tool in almost every subject area. I think the next step is student produced media. Just like it took a while to value watching video, it might take some time to value creating it. It will take a while for more teacher to think "media literacy is an approach, not a discipline."
The article on living books was quite interesting. What I found interesting in relation to this article and others was the potential of multimedia tools to aid learning. I remember reading another article on how ipods are being used as teaching aids in language classes where students either listen to words being pronounced or sing along to popular English songs and thereby acquire some grammar. I think it will be interesting to see how instructors can take advantage of technology students are interested in like video games, podcasting. ipods etc and create learning experiences for their students
I enjoyed the living books article especially when I compared what was happening in Israel to my own foreign language education. In Latin and Greek, the main experiences that I had consisted of myself and my printed text flash cards.The emphasis on using multimedia to provide learners with a more vivid learning experiences looks more effective and more enjoyable.
In the article Multimedia journalism: A classroom tour I felt the big issue for journalism majors is to focus on meta computer literacy skills rather than general computer literacies because so many new types of media are being used to distribute news.
I get my news from internet and from my cellphone. Even many traditional news programs report news from the internet on their programs.
I like the ideas in the “Media in the classroom” article. Those ideas lead to interactive and interesting learning. I also found the Living Books article very interesting for me. In fact , we don’t have that great edutainment genres in Arabic . but I am sure we will have that soon.
I spend a good portion of my method's classes teaching pre-service teachers how to use technology in the classroom. I require video clips to be included in all my assignments. I have been chastised by the cooperating teachers because a great many of them believe this is unimportant and a waste of student time because they will never use this in the classroom. I was also surprised by the "Media in the classroom" there percentages of media in the classroom did seem high at least for the Appalachian region I am familiar with.In order to get video in the classrooms we loan out camera not only to our students on a one by one basis but in groups for projects in site schools.
“We all know from experience that the more engaged your students are, the more interactive your lesson is, the more your students will enjoy, learn from and retain information from your lessons.” (Using Video in the classroom) I think this sentence is very true. While we learn the educational technology, we should always think about how to use technology to motivate and enhance student learning. That is a goal for technology instructor.
Using Video in the Classroom
By Lori Griffin, Curriculum Director, Library Video Company
Careful use of video I believe is the key. The article suggest that "you can ensure interactivity by replicating activities, workshops, demonstrations and experiments in your classroom environment." It seems that a lot of times teachers don't necessarily follow up the video with some of the things listed above that will truly enhance learning and not become the "filler or mental checkout time" it has often become in many classrooms.
The posted readings from week two made me go back to my high school days in Florida. Throughout my k-12 schooling I was introduced to a variety of multimedia teachings. Looking back I do not think the multimedia lessons were run as well as they could have been but they were effective. We never learned to make videos, but in a class like biology where we are learning about a variety of animals, it was nice to have a video that allowed us to see the animal we were learning. Also, most classes had computers where we could access many of the software packages that were mentioned in the blended media reading. The last thing I am going to say is that in high school I was in TV productions. I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but after reading about the different types of blended learning, I realized that the practice at creating stories for the school news was a great way to learn.
It is always nice reflecting on my high school years and I bet many of those experiences have influenced my views about teaching. This is because I am a staunch believer in experience. To put it simply I believe that a student must experience something before they will truly learning. This experience can come from hands on learning or any other way the student can experience the event. The blended media article offered many options for teachers to bring that experience to their students.
Media in the Class Room
The constructivist idea here is very engaging but I believe our school and probably many others are far from implimenting it. There needs to be lots of convincing and instruction of adminstration (and staff) that the constuctivists ideal can be implimented into a standards based, test driven environment.
Living Books
Where this idea seems most applicable is in the educating of the masses and has an interesting application into foreign language study. This idea is not really new...I think a similar idea was done on the "PBS's Electric Company" in the 1970's. The idea of student produced Living Books would be a nice interdisciplinary endeavor between a media teacher and a Language or History teacher.
As for Living Book "Freaks" let's be careful not make this another type of "baby sitter" in lieu of some good reading/snuggle time with the kiddos!
Multi Media Journalism
Foundations...you have to have a foundation to do anything. Video storytelling, web designetc. have a foundation...storytelling or design. You can not have a great video without a great story...you can not have a great website with some solid design stucture. Maybe most courses should be 5 years with the fifth being media applications of the field of study? (...it should be a free year courtesy of the college!...I can't afford to send 3 kids to 3 extra years of college!)
Blended Learning
Video and multi media are just another tool. As in a carpenter's tool box every tool is not good for every job, but video and the web can be powerful and can offer things to students that traditional resources cannot. The biggest problem is sifting out all the poor resources from the good ones. Today's tech resources are not easily bundled in a textbook or curriculum package. For example, we were recently talking about outstanging architecture in my CP Art History class. I was able to show my students an excellent video on the Dome of the Rock from YouTube, no spin, no commentary, just raw footage. There is no way a book can give such an experience...however it takes time to find these resources.
My Media Productions class is very much like the programs that are listed in the article “Multimedia Journalism; A Classroom Tour”. My program was until 4 years ago two separate programs. 1. Printed Media – producing the school newspaper; and Media Productions – Producing the school news program and learning the process of video productions. Our administration decided when the Media Productions instructor retired to combine the two classes into one program of study.
In some instances I am not 100% sure that this was the best for either class. The students that are interested in the printed media and have no desire to be on the school news struggle with learning the electronic process of utilizing the digital editor and being in front of the camera as new anchors. The students who have no desire or even sometimes no talent for writing articles for the “Morganna” struggle with this.
While they do learn entry-level skills in both areas I feel that they would be better served if they were able to develop further their talents and skills in their chosen area.
The reading from Week 1 was interesting, albeit concerning. As several people have already stated, the percentage of teachers using video in their classrooms (as stated by Lori Griffin) was startling. By no means do I consider my high school to be trend-setting, but it is in a fairly wealthy district and the community does value education. Despite this, about half of the faculty are opposed to technology in the classroom, particularly video. I suspect many of them are not familiar with the concept of blended learning. Many seem to think that it is “all or nothing.” Either technology is used every day for entire lessons or not at all. However, even the research is does not support this theory.
Kate talked about how many of her colleagues saw her use of video as "fun, but not educational." This has been my experience as well. I don’t know if comments like these stem from insecurity, envy, or if indeed they are genuine. Regardless, it is always concerning when your peers are quick to judge as opposed to lending support.
From both the first and second weeks’ assignments, the most prevalent theme for me was that technology itself does not fix problems. It is a support tool, meant to enhance best practices already in place. It is not a substitute for educators, nor does it mask poor leadership.
Anna and Tom both commented on the “Living Books” article and I, too, found it interesting. For a prior course, I was reading “Teaching with the Brain in Mind” – though I have forgotten the authors – and I remember them talking about how television and computers were detrimental to a child’s development prior to about the age of nine. They cited research regarding two- and three-dimensional learning that takes place during these early years and how children develop a misrepresentation of the world when experiencing two-dimensional learning environments. I’m curious if any of you have heard about this?
Our readings reminded me of Henry Jenkins' seminal 2006 article on media literacy and education, "Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21th Century." It discusses a number of the themes and present in our readings, and lays out a series of "core competencies" for K-12 media education that benefit students engaged in "participatory culture." Incorporating digital storytelling and other media into education gives students and teachers the ability to engage with one another and remix existing media, in this case to tell stories and communicate around events. Jenkins lists the following as essential skills for students to obtain in order to participate fully in society and learning:
Play — the capacity to experiment with your surroundings as a form of problem-solving
Performance — the ability to adopt alternative identities for the purpose of improvisation and discovery
Simulation — the ability to interpret and construct dynamic models of real world processes
Appropriation — the ability to meaningfully sample and remix media content
Multitasking — the ability to scan one's environment and shift focus as needed to salient details.
Distributed Cognition — the ability to interact meaningfully with tools that expand mental capacities
Collective Intelligence — the ability to pool knowledge and compare notes with others toward a common goal
Judgment — the ability to evaluate the reliability and credibility of different information sources
Transmedia Navigation — the ability to follow the flow of stories and information across multiple modalities
Networking — the ability to search for, synthesize, and disseminate information
Negotiation — the ability to travel across diverse communities, discerning and respecting multiple perspectives, and grasping and following alternative norms.
Any of these are exemplified by the projects in the Center for Digital Storytelling from last week, for example, and reflect the idea of play in "Multimedia and Learning" as well as the principles that guide blended learning.
I really enjoyed the readings for week two and have also enjoyed reading others' comments about them. I agree with Kate and Emily that so many teachers seem to see using video as fun rather than educational. I don't know what I would do in my class without video!! It's the only way I can "take" my fifth graders to see an opera, the only way most of my sixth graders will see a musical, and certainly the only way my 3rd graders are going to see a good violinist! Anna said "Blended learning is really what I believe will soon become the norm in education. It has already begun. " I completely agree with this statement and am glad to see that others seem to as well. Maybe my school system isn't as far behind technologically as we thought!
In response to Emily - I don't know what research they've used to make this decision, but my brother and sister-in-law didn't start allowing my nephew to watch television until he was about 18 months old. Now, at a little over two years, he's allowed one hour of "TV Time" a day - this includes movies, videos, and computer games. I have noticed that his attention span is absolutely incredible for a two-year-old! He will sit and play a game for much longer than I would expect out of a child that age. In fact, he has a longer attention span than most of my kinders! He also doesn't like shows like "Sesame Street" because they move TOO quickly for him! Not sure if that answers any of your question, but I thought I'd throw in my two cents!
Here's a link to the Jenkins paper I mentioned in my last post...
Living books: The incidental bonus of playing with multimedia
Before I read this article I didn't have any idea of what a living book was. I found living books a very interesting tool to teach a second language. I believe in the importance of an emotional appeal in the acquisition of new knowledge and I think that the creative construction approach and incidental learning are key elements in second language learning. For me, it has been very difficult to learn English, in part because I never was exposed to the language when I was I child, I didn't have TV cable at home so I never saw TV programs in English and the ways I was exposed to English were through stressful English courses based on memorization. I used to hate English classes.
I get excited with Living books and I ordered one “Stellaluna” to know more about this multimedia tool, and who knows maybe it help me to improve my English. jajaja.
The article Multimedia Journalism: A classroom tour was interesting for me because my education background is in communication and journalism. I completely agree with introducing multimedia journalism in the journalism curriculum, and also other multimedia courses, especially if I think in the curriculum of the universities in Colombia where there are not schools exclusively for journalism, all the journalism careers are called communication and journalism and include also TV and radio production; therefore the universities are equipped with video cameras and recording studios and the need of equipment and facilities for teaching multimedia courses wouldn’t be a problem. On the other hand, I think that both a social communicator and a journalist should have skills or capabilities in the use of multimedia tools for performing well professionally in today’s society.
I can relate to several ideas in the Blended Learning article. Earlier this week I attended our school district's Continuous Improvement Plan meeting. The focus of this meeting was to update the technology component of our CIP. Middle school and high school language arts teachers spoke highly of the capabilities of the Vantage Learning software that allows students to type responses to reading prompts in a web-based application and get immediate feedback on their writing. The biggest downfall to this is that it takes hours for some middle school students to actually type their responses. Several of the teachers suggested that a technology class be added to our elementary schools that teaches basic computer skills and keyboarding. Currently we have no technology classes available until grade 10. Three school board members and the district superintendent were present at the meeting and were very receptive to this idea and thought classes should begin as early as grade 3.
I agree with the comments about how teachers tend to use video only for fun activities and are not taking advantage of how video can really enhance students learning. I know a lot of elementary teachers will show a movie or short film to reward students, but they need to realize how much they can utilize video and engage students so much more in the learning process. It can be fun, interactive and very educational. I think we still have a lot of teachers using it only for fun or to fill time. I do believe it will catch on more and more once teachers realize it's capabilities and results.
When you think about all the possibilities available to teach our children, it is mind boggling. With multimedia and internet capabilities, they can experience things they never could before without actually going places. They can see people in their original cultures, they can hear native speakers and actually talk to them. It is just amazing to think of all the opportunities available. How lucky the teachers and students are to have all of this technology available to them.
The article I found most interesting was Media in the Classroom by Kathleen Tyner. She outlines the differences between using video in the traditional classroom and constructivist classroom by linking them to four functions; Access and analysis of information, Hands-on production, Assessment and Restructuring. While I agree that the constructivist approach promotes critical thinking and parent and community involvement in the classroom, I think she downplayed the importance of traditional approach a little bit.
To my Understnading the " The Multimedia Journalism article is an overview of how emerging technologies are adding value to training of students in journalism and mass media fields. The gist of the article is how students can use the technologies like blogs, video,web pages amonng others to create interactive materials in their various disciplines. The article differentiates between the teaching students how to use the techologies and teaching students on how to use the technologies to create their own contents.
I feel this very important article that can be recommended to policy makers administrators, and technology coordintaors who want to integrate ICT in classrooms.
I find these articles interesting that different bits and pieces blended together make for a great opportunity. I've used many different video clips, as Dave suggested earlier. The videos seem to help the concept sink in so much better than me using several methods to teach the same concept.
Video and multimedia applications are an easy way to address several learning styles in one easy package. You get the audio/visual components, and you can reach the emotional level as well.
I think these articles outline how multimedia can be used in the classroom, but its up to us to help get teachers and administrators on board of using this in the classroom.
I can not believe that in year 1991 the multimedia was used in the school. Because i still know that right now some of our school do not have any of these equipments ... But i agree with Jenny... I will move to California as well.. smile
http://www.firstmonday.org/Issues/issue2_11/radford/index.html
Please check out this link which talks about the future of multimedia in education by Allyn Radford.
As Dr. Franklin mentioned in the first f2f class, schools in CA has been using multimedia in their educational system for a while. The article "video in classroom" referenced more detailed statistical numbers and the benefits about video in classroom.
I also realized that the link I posted provides more details. It covers the definitions, the vision in future and how we can adopt multimedia as our solution to deal with educational problems.
I agree with Charlie about videos and multimedia being able to reach multiple learning styles at one time. It is unfortunate that in my district that some of the buildings have almost all the technology they could ever want while others, including the high school, have very little. I had to wait two weeks after school started to even get an overhead screen for the overhead projector! The district wants to incorporate the use of technology into the classroom but only makes it available at some of the schools. I understand this is a budget issue but how do they expect students to go from a technology rich environment such as our new Junior High School to an environment where there is little technology available like our high school?
As I think about the use of multimedia applications in the classroom after learning some of the ideas and techniques through this course, it is astounding of the possibilities. I can see my 4th grade students really getting into this, and how valuable it would be for their learning. I see many teachers in my building who use videos from time to time in the computer lab with their class, but I’m beginning to understand how much more valuable it would be for the students to be creating the videos themselves. Using Movie Maker or Storyboard is an easy way to get the kids excited for some real learning, as opposed to just showing videos for the sake of “that’s my technology connection for the day/week”.
I agree with a comment from Kurt, until technology is a tested concentration area, it is going to be hard to get teachers/administrators on board with using more technology in the classroom as stated in the Media in the Classroom article.
I think video is a component that can be easily integrated into our classrooms. It sounds that video is being used in some very basic ways, but it would be much more meaningful to follow up the video with some activities and questions that connect directly with the video piece as stated in the Using Video in the classroom article. It almost seems like many teachers are using video to take up time without the thought or knowledge of how the video can really be used in the classroom. I like Dave’s comment on using small clips opposed to an entire video, it might take a little more work, but it takes care of a lot of the extra “fluff” that consumes much of the time and distracts the students from the real purpose of the activity.
Getting teachers to realize how easy it is to make multimedia is a hurdle that once cleared, could make way for some great teaching and learning. Getting teachers to expose their students to the act of making these videos would be an even better outcome, the teacher could then take a back seat and learn from their students.
week two readings:
Until reading week two assignments, I really thought I was doing a good job at incorporating media into the classroom. Now... I am ready to move to a district that has all these wonderful media tools available for their students.
Being able to use video in the classroom would be so benefical to the students. As an elementary teacher, I spend more time designing my lessonts than teaching them- The idea is to create an engaging lesson that will energize my students and get them hands-on with what we are learning- Video is a great way to do so!
I too agree with the Brigham Young example- As teachers, we need to use media as much as possible, while still sticking to our "roots"
Week 2
As I was reading multimedia in journalism I started to wonder about OU and our College of Journalism and how things are ran over there. I know the school is very good and is always ranked high in the US for the School of Journalism but I was just wondering if it was preparing for the future or not. Do they work well with the College of Telecommunications? I know working together is very important and together you can get more done. Maybe that is why they are both rank high in the ratings. I was hoping they would talk about OU in the article but they never. One thing that I liked was Ball State. Being in the middle of nowhere, they are about to get help from a big time newspaper, the Chicago Tribune. They just want to help prepare them for working in that field.
Tom
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