How’s this for a university course description?
“Directed writing is integrated into all aspects of the production process — brainstorming and conceptualization, drafting and storyboarding, revision, and critique. Writing is positioned as an integral part of the process of thinking, problem solving, and creating… Students who understand visual, time-based communication and have robust writing skills will have a competitive advantage in the coming decades.”
Continuing with our tour of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign’s take on using today’s tools to give students a voice, we visit Maria Lovett’s Writing with Video class. According to the article on Apple’s education profiles page, she and Professor Joseph Squier were investigating what it means to be literate in this day and age. Students seem to be eager to help them find an answer. The course went from one section with 6 students in 2005 to 180 students filling six sections and a waiting list this semester. From illustrating parts of speech to interviewing each other, students share their learning in their own words and images.
If you are reading this blog, you are probably in the “choir” but isn’t it nice to know who is singing along with you?
No, I’m not writing about Hall or me. While perusing a StreamingMedia email I ran across an article by Paul Rismandel, the manager of digital media production for the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Coincidentally, today I was going to blog about a writing program down there at UIUC that uses video production to help students communicate. Maybe they can use some of that skill to help the football team’s chances for a bowl bid. Anyhow, I’ll put the writing program on hold and use Paul’s column as a segue for it.
I mostly browse Streaming Media to keep on eye on what the “industry” is up to or sees coming down the road. It was the email title “The Future of Educational Video?” that piqued my interest this time and made me dig deeper. Originally, this was published in the print version’s “Class Act” column as the “Blair Witch Podcast.” I like his point of view just in titles alone. And a couple of his points that really struck a chord with me are:
“the democratization of media-making tools is a powerful force for education”
students need not spend semesters in video/film production classes in order to make decent videos and podcasts
“It is time for the academy to take audio and video seriously.”
‘Tis the season. As the days get shorter and darker and what’s left of the first semester starts its long fade out in a flurry of holidays and testing, we in the northern hemisphere become more reflective and generous. So, in the spirit of the season, I’d like to reflect on a thank you gift I received from DEN educator Gail LeGrand for visiting her school and taping an interview in English and Spanish (¡Caray! how the rust has formed on that language!)
I don’t know when I’ll actually finish reading Jason Ohler’s newest book, Digital Storytelling in the Classroom: New Media Pathways to Literacy, Learning, and Creativity, but I really like what I’ve seen so far. For starters he describes the DAOW of what digital storytelling offers the world of learning and literacy - that being the four literacies most often involved: Digital, Art, Oral, and Writing (Pg. 54). I won’t give much more away because I haven’t read any further. But you can read some for yourself. Jason has tucked a number of excerpts away as “Revelations” in his SubTechst blog. As of a few weeks ago he was up to #15.
I hope your holiday season is off to a great start with a gathering of family and friends and a good meal.
Photo credit: Wild male turkey with feathers fanned. Discovery Communications, Inc.
(Copyright Discovery Communications, Inc.). Retrieved November 21, 2007, from
unitedstreaming: http://streaming.discoveryeducation.com
We spent last Wednesday through Friday at Illinois’ fall edtech conference and celebrated the DEN at a reception with about 50 educators (55 if you count the folks in Second Life), account manager Chris Ryan, and brand new Midwest DEN manager, Michael Bryant. The door prize drawing took on an extra level of excitement as the SL attendees did back flips and shot off fireworks to celebrate the winners and then tried to get their own names into the hat. As with many things enhanced and expanded by the web, it looks like we have to give more thought to “must be present to win.”
There were lots of good ideas floating around the conference and I’m sure a number will surface here later. However, the one that I will be latching onto immediately will supply the theme for our ’09 IL video festival: it’s Lincoln’s 200th birthday! Photo: Paul Fuqua. “Lincoln, Abraham.” unitedstreaming: http://streaming.discoveryeducation.com
While trying to mount my first slideshare in order to make my Makin’ Movies webinar PPT available to attendees, I found this interesting share by Alan Levine for the New Media Consortium Conference at Tulane: “50 Web 2.0 Ways to Tell a Story.”
Here’s a contest that started in mid-September and I just got wind of. Sony Creative is inviting both independent producers and school groups to create a PSA (public service announcement) about cyberbullying. The grand prize for students is studio equipment worth almost $26,000. You have until January 11, 2008 to get your act together and submit your video. If you don’t get one in by then, I’m coming over there and taking your lunch money!
And speaking of bullying, I hope you don’t think all this mentioning of contests is an attempt by me to browbeat you into joining one. That would be nice, but the “competition” can be really intimidating if you’re just getting started and/or have limited resources and time. My real ulterior motive is to browbeat you into becoming a thief. Please help yourself to these great competition/festival ideas for classroom and intramural movie making. They are all pretty well thought out and based on current or very creative topics. You really can’t go far wrong adapting them to your age group and subject matter.
So that old “Get a life!” conversation ender has become the conversation starter “Got Second Life?” And now, “do you have any pictures or movies?”
How about a digital storytelling contest in SL? It’s on and it’s soon. The deadline is midnight Saturday but don’t panic. The basis of the contest is that all “footage,” images and snapshots must come from in world. Round up your friends and have an avatar casting call.
The categories are a good indication of the fun and learning the contest hopes to generate:
Best “Life in SL” video
Best Historical Reenactment
Best Content Lesson (take us on a tour of an educational place)
Best “Out-of-the-Box” (doesn’t fit into any other category)
Best Overall
Best Low Tech (using things like Animoto, Voicethread, other freebie auto things)
From my uncles who landed at Normandy a few days after D-Day to an old friend who was a POW in Korea and my classmates who served in Viet Nam, all I really know is that they were there. So I was very surprised when a couple of projects in my former school district got veterans talking. We actually have a WWII class and they sought out veterans who were willing to add their stories to a project for the Library of Congress. This was documenting and not really storytelling. If we had had more time, the students could have pulled a few experiences out of every interview’s 30-60 minutes, added archival footage or memorabilia, and edited it into a very small version of what Ken Burns’ recent “The War” gave us. Putting each student’s veteran’s clip together on a DVD would have made for a great store of primary sources. O, for more time…
On the other hand, when we invited senior citizens in for each semester’s digital storytelling workshop there was a gentleman who was more than ready to tell how his WWII unit just happened to be where the only remaining bridge over the Rhine was (see “Ludendorf Bridge”). And another man whose father was in the Army band between the wars lightheartedly shared how his father survived but the trumpet didn’t (see “We Can’t Toot his Horn”). And I originally forgot “Building Bridges” by a veteran whose WWII service time was spent preparing a route east from Burma.
A huge benefit of engaging your students in digital storytelling is their involvement in real world experience: asking their own questions, getting unexpected or very unique answers, and “seeing” through different points of view.
A search on “veteran” on Discovery Education streaming turned up about ten videos germane to Veterans’ Day. The first picture above is from Discovery Education, “Veterans and Veterans Day” and the second one is out of United Learning, “Return to Vietnam: Healing on the Hill,” both at http://streaming.discoveryeducation.com
On a personal note, I still don’t have a real good answer for my father-in-law’s annual question, “Why, when I was the one under fire in the Pacific for years, do you and your students get the day off and I don’t?” And he owned his own business. Sense of duty, I guess.
Let’s all welcome the American Film Institute’s Screen Education program to the blogosphere! While I was prepping my granddaughter for her first Halloween, they were treating themselves to their first posts. Bob Jennings wrote up an overview of AFI’s ScreenEd mission and Frank Guttler talks a little about their “Lights, Camera, Education!” program in the two October posts. But what will really set this blog apart is posts like Frank’s November 1st comparison between “Pulp Fiction” and “The Princess Bride.” What mythic elements could they possibly have in common? And then there is today’s post about “To Kill a Mockingbird” the book and the movie. Drop in over at http://blog.afi.com/screened.
I’m really embarrassed I almost missed Jennifer Gingerich’s Makin’ Movies Made Simple webinar last night and doubly embarrassed that I hadn’t picked up on it in time to plug it here. So let me try to make amends with this post.
Jennifer shared some great project ideas with practical tips for keeping it simple, keeping everyone together, and making the most of your “techsperts.” She showed some very creative projects from poetry to riddles and shares the how-to’s on this page of her site.
A few things that were discussed and sites to go with them…
Software:
iMovie on the Mac (free)
PhotoStory and MovieMaker for PC’s (free). You’ll have to search and download PhotoStory from the Microsoft site - XP and above.
PowerPoint, KidSpiration, HyperStudio (coming soon!), etc. are also good for visual storytelling.
Adobe Premiere Elements (very affordable), ULead, Pinnacle Studio, Final Cut Pro or Express, etc. are big steps up in price and power.
M-Audio has bundled a PC software program called Session with some of their music peripherals. It seems a lot like Garage Band: with keyboard or as a separate package
Cameras:
You can do a lot with digital still pictures and the movies that they make. FlipCam doesn’t use tape and is very affordable (~$100).
Thoughts:
Use external and headset mics for the best sound when narrating. Usually in the $15-20 range. Mac users can’t just plug into the line in jack. Mics on a Mac need to go through USB to have enough power.
Keep it simple and focused - limit special effects and transitions
Preparation, research, writing, storyboards are key. The technology is secondary and can’t rescue a poor foundation.
Here is the DEN’s webinar schedule for the whole rest of the school year.
Since this is traditionally an election day, I think it’s appropriate to encourage you all to get out and vote. There are a number of hotly contested contests going on and you can still get your $.02 in.
Interwrite’s Makeover contest is the most manageable: just fifteen entries, five in each grade level. Voting is open through November 8th.
The Insomnia contest will still accept your input through November 9th. Since there are almost 2,000 videos you might want to do a search on your town or state or alma mater to see if they have a video worthy of your endorsement.
The Lenovo Carry the Torch voting has closed and will announce their winners on November 12th after some voter verification. You can still view the videos on their site including our own DEN colleague, Linda Bilak.
And the campaign is still in full swing for the Voices of Innovation contest for high school students. You have until November 9th to register a team and until the 19th to submit your video.
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How’s this for a university course description?
