Time Consuming? Yes, that's good.

Flip Camera

The reason I say that Digital Editing is time consuming is because it does take time to get it right. And I mean that in several ways. First and foremost the planning that is involved in the storyboarding part takes a considerable amount of time. Writing up a script, thinking about camera angles, inserting sounds and visuals - other then the video, all take some time to ponder about. Secondly, the shooting of the video takes time because of the possibilty and or necessity to take and retake particular scenes if need be. This may be due to outside noises or the forgetting of one's lines. Third, once the filming is done the editing takes place. Cutting here and there in order to make a tight little package all under a minute or whatever the time restrictions may be also does take some time. If only viewers knew the amount of time it took to put together that 30 second PSA. Finally, the good part about all of this is that while putting together a digital video editing production participants are so engaged in the process that the time goes by rather quickly. So for this instance of learning by those involved, time really does fly by while you're having fun. Could a teacher ask for anything more?

Podcasts

I am by way far a radio listener than a television viewer. I don't have cable and I am not a fan of any particular show on TV at present. But as that old Dire Straits song (with the Sting opener) goes "I want my MTV". Not! I want my C-Span and NPR. That's basically it. I go back and forth between those two radio stations more than any other. I know what times shows are on and have my radio alarm clock set to them. Occasionally if I should either miss a show and or want to hear again something broadcast from a show on either of these stations I'll listen again via a podcast. Not only that, but C-Span will provide written transcripts as well. How cool is that. Boy I hope I am not considered a nerd for saying that.
Having always been into music (and now talk radio) I find this Podcast thing really amazing, especially when creating them myself. Splicing and dubbing in sound and or voice overs is quite a trick. Getting it just right makes it an art form. The music intros and outros and that found intertwined within make a radio sound production so much more worthwhile listening to. Even more so than video I find well done audio productions that much more appealing. Perhaps it's a way to make up for the lack of talent I have in playing a musical instrument. The creation of a podcast is almost like that of a composition. Having a purpose and an audience in mind then developing a certain style and format and taking in time considerations are all things a composer does. To me being behind the scenes and producing a podcast radio production is truly, if not even more so thrilling than being the voice behind the microphone.

WWW or Why Wikis Work

Getting students to write has to be one of the most difficult things to do. I can remember even when I was a child writing had to be my least favorite thing to do in school.  In fact I can remember having to do it as a punishment for misbehaving in class, as in having to write "I must not talk" 100 X. Maybe it's just instinctive in us as humans, but even for that I would try to be creative. It's funny how I can recall coming up with inventive ways to even write that, thinking for instance that perhaps if I wrote each word individually a hundred times first on a new line like this, "I, I, I, I .... must, must, must...,etc." it would get done more quickly. Who knows though, perhaps it was having to do that "task" (as the term was used back then) so many times which made me associate picking up a pencil to write something burdensome, even when writing about a topic I may have enjoyed. Writing for pleasure as in reading for pleasure were not things I associated with "pleasure" until much later in my young adult years. What a wonder wikis seem to be now. If only I had had the opportunity "as a punishment" to read an on-line Wiki and make a written contribution to it. Perhaps that would have spurred in me an earlier desire to research and write and not have looked at it as a burden. But having around a wiki or not really doesn't matter. A tool not used is just as useless as a tool not around. A creative teacher then could have made a writing assignment just as pleasurable then as now. Application of a tool can not be haphazard either. A wiki has many affordances to learning; from writing which leads to easy and fun ways to edit, a la wiki, by being able to highlight and play around with font and other such things that a toolbar provides. The further adding in of audio and video, and the uploading of files and pictures. All of these aspects that a wiki allows for can create a nice collaborative event. Instead of getting into trouble and talking with my school age friends we could have been involved with a wiki on whatever the subject was that held our attention. Maybe as a punishment in these modern times the task of "withholding writing" would be even more severe then mine was back in the day. What a punishment that would be, taking away the privilege and not being allowed to write on a wiki anymore.

The Blob...No - The Blog

Blog, what a name, eh? According to Wikipedia (the on-line encyclopedia which everyone uses, but is not supposed to use as a final authority, but does) it's a blend of the words web and log. I guess it sounds better than wog or weblo. Whatever the case, blogs are the latest and greatest form of personal exposure, or perhaps twitter now has that distinction. Nonetheless, both allow one to put oneself out there, albeit blogs allow for much much more to be said or exposed of and by oneself, if you will. But as the cartoon above depicts, blogging really is a conscious decision one makes. Just because one has this exposure though does not make one a Shakespeare. Regardless though if you are a celebrity you will be read if you blog because of that status, whether you write well or not. Writing, and writing well is perhaps one of the hardest things to do, at least for me. So aside from my co-hort buddies I do not expect to get much traffic to my blog. And if it is read or not perhaps the best thing about blogging is that it is all done in cyber-space. As an educational tool this is really a wonder. Allowing students to think that they are kind of famous by being on-line for all to see can be quite a motivational draw for many. Who doesn't always look for themselves in a group photograph? So let me end here for now with this disclaimer and stop rambling, until I get my thoughts together, hopefully in my next blog. I do feel good in saying though, no trees or animals were harmed in this post : ) 

The Great Unbreakable Frog

When I ran across my real frog specimens kit that I had purchased a year ago, put away and promptly forgot about, I knew that this was the class that it would best serve, especially since the frogs were encased in unbreakable acrylic. At first I passed around for all to see, the 4 rectangular shaped glassy like encased frogs, which are preserved at the various stages of their development. This took more time then I expected as the students were kind of awe struck and in what seemed to be great wonderment as they looked at them. All making sure they had checked out all 4 pieces at least twice. Some were even in disbelief that they were even real, beings that I told them that the frogs were dead, then "why" they asked, "was there no blood?" Thus the way the mind of an 8-year old works. As students were working on another whole group color, cut and paste longer activity about the frog, I chose 4 of them at a time to work with the acrylic frog specimens. They had to label diagrams by filling in the names of the body parts, which could be found written into the acrylic alongside the body part identifying the stages in the frog's life cycle. By having the frogs presented this way allowed for the children to compare and contrast the features of a frog at different stages of its life cycle: egg and tadpole, 2-legged frog, froglet, adult frog, and more importantly, to look in a safe up-close manner. They enjoyed it, and nothing got broken.

Market Day

To better help students understand the concept of money, the 2nd grade does something every year called Market Day. Students have to either bring to school an object or food product they had made and sell it for school money (known as Eagle Bucks) or be willing to perform a service and get paid for it, such as cleaning out another's desk. A couple of things were learned in the process. A.) People will give you money if you have a quality product to sell and B.) how to make change. Addition and subtraction are just starting to sink in with the kids and some will still hand over more money than what the price has called for and walk away not even thinking about expecting to get change. Last weeks Market Day products ranged from handmade bracelets to chocolate chip cookies. I was able to make the rounds to all the classes and see how things went. Totally and absolutely students were in to this exercise. Quite a few of the students commented that " this was the best day of the year." It was like a mini-carnival atmosphere. Students were so excited about the the things to buy and food to eat. They were so innocent too in that they would just lay their money down on their desk, leave it there, and walk around to see what else was going on. With a little luck hopefully this much interest and excitement will carry over into their teenage years and give them an incentive to get summer jobs when they get older.

Using Pantomime as a Learning Tool

In Kindergarten class the other day I was given the task of teaching the children the ending sounds of words. In particular it was the –ap and –at sounds. Fortunately a lot of the words lent themselves to actions students could perform as a way to express their knowledge of exactly what the word means. In this activity I first had the children close their eyes and then I wrote up on the board a word. Their goal was to A.) not to say the word aloud [the most difficult part as it turned out] B.) try to act it out the best way they new how. C.) other students were to then guess what the word was. Words used included: hat, cat, mat, sat, rat, bat, fat, pat…. cap, lap, map, rap, sap (hard one-had to explain it), tap, wrap (I had to do this one), and nap (they loved doing this one especially when their teacher was returning back to the room). Afterwards the children had a cut, match, and paste activity consisting of the above list, where they were to match the picture to the word. Most importantly to them, they also got to color the pictures after matching and pasting was all done.