Digital Video

I grew up with macs at school and at home, so it only seemed right to continue owning Apple computers when it was time to buy my own. I started playing around with more of the applications that come standard on the computers when I was in college. Granted the ibook I had is nothing compared to the macbooks out now, but I got an idea of what I could create. When I had to retire that laptop after I graduated college, I purchased a newer powerbook, which I bought right before the first macbook was released. I had just started teaching when I bought my new laptop and started to get into photography towards the end of my first year of teaching. The next year I started to explore what I could do with imovie and idvd, applications that I did not have on my previous laptop. I taught myself how to use imovie and how to use pictures and some video to create movies. I fell in love with the program and continued to use footage and pictures I had taken at school to capture school events on dvd. Several years later when the memory was almost at full capacity on my laptop and Apple had come out with better computers with updated and new programs and a whole lot more memory, I decided it was time to get a new computer. I had just bought a professional camera and was becoming more interested in photography. I also got a video camera that was better quality than the video feature on my old camera.
After deciding on a desktop because it had more memory, I went straight to exploring the new features on my imac. Video editing has taken on a whole new meaning to me with the updated version of imovie. I've updated it a couple times over the past 3 years I've had my imac and the experience of editing movies has impacted some projects that I've done in the classroom. I combine pictures and video into most of the movies I make because I'm more of a photographer than a videographer. Many of the 10,000 plus pictures I have on my computer are of my students or school events. The only time I take videos, which is even more simple with the flip video that I recently upgraded to, is at school. My students have taken videos and pictures on field trips that I have edited to show their experiences. My students have performed plays, some of which involved a lot of editing. I have had students create videos of their spelling words to show them the effects of filming. I have created numerous dvds of their videos and picture slideshows for them to keep at the end of the year. Throughout all of these projects I have learned so much about digital video editing just by experimenting.
After reflecting on my experiences with digital video and my knowledge of integrating technology, I have realized that there is so much more potential to using digital video in the classroom. Students can not only learn how to film, but also how to edit their own movies. Digital video is a great tool to use to create commercials, advertisements, role play historical and current events, perform plays, digital scavenger hunts, and the list goes on. I have never thought about having students edit their own videos because the software I was using at home was not in my classroom. After exploring Windows Movie Maker, I have discovered a way for students to edit their own movies, even if it is nowhere near the quality of imovie and higher end editing software. I am excited to design lessons in which digital video editing can be used as part of the project and to see student using their thinking skills as they piece together the parts of their movie.

Podcasts

I still haven't found the extra time in my schedule to explore podcasts. I think podcasts are a great way to listen to a series on basically any topic you can find. Apple has made it very convenient to access and listen to podcasts through itunes, and the iphone, ipad, and ipod. You never have to worry about missing a radio segment again. I think I could get more into listening to podcasts when I have some more free time. For now, I think I'll stick with creating podcasts and figuring out how to get students involved with using them. I had no idea how easy it was to create a podcast until experiencing it first hand. Owning a mac, I also realized the full potential of some of the programs to create podcasts.
Since creating a podcast in class, I have been thinking about all the ways that podcasts can be used in the classroom. I never thought about having students create a podcast and the impact it can have on learning. While I probably won't have much time to teach with podcasts this school year, I am already brainstorming the possibilities for next year. Podcasts are a great tool to conduct historical or character interviews, tour a place students are learning about, record science experiment findings, and the list goes on. Students also get a chance to become very creative in planning their script and very animated in recording the podcast. I'm excited for the numerous ways podcasts can be an asset to learning and can't wait to incorporate them into lessons.

All About Wikis

When most people hear the word wiki, it's often accompanied by pedia. Wikipedia is a type of wiki that is widely used and known among most people. Wikipedia is also at the center of controversy in schools. There is a debate over the use of wikipedia and whether or not students should be using it. Wikipedia should be viewed as one of the greatest collaboration projects and a great starting point for any research. Students can learn so much from this model of collaboration.

Wikis are a way in which students can collaborate with each other and with other students and classes. Wikis are a form of online collaboration, which means it can be accessed anytime. Students can collaborate from the classroom, the library, or at home. Students can create wikis to display their research on a topic or as a review. Wikis link to other pages and documents and can be user controlled. Access to wikis can be determined by the author and different people can have different roles. This makes class projects via wikis very easy and safe. I think if wikis are used in the right way, they can become the next model of collaboration in the classroom.

 

Blogs in the Classroom?

Blogs are still a foreign concept to some people. It is even more ridiculous to many other people that blogs would be in the same sentence as school or classroom. There is a lot of talk today around the ideas of testing, standards, and education. Why is it that technology is not in the spotlight when talking about education reform? While this is a very complicated and involved discussion that will not continue much further in this post, it is important to look at how education is portrayed to those of us not in a classroom on a daily basis. I can think of countless articles about school reform efforts, low test scores, poor teacher performance, and schools that are failing students, but it's hard to think of articles that shed light on schools and individual classrooms where students are learning with technology. Even modern day movies (I won't mention any names...) portray classrooms with a chalkboard and teacher desk at the front and student desks all in rows. The image is painted that education has not changed in some time. While those of us on the inside know that this is only partly true, it becomes increasingly difficult to convince others that schools are taking steps into the 21st century utilizing many new tools available for educators and students.

While watching Grey's Anatomy last week, I was encouraged by the use of twitter as a learning tool. Dr. Bailey used twitter to connect surgeons from all over the country by posting updates on the surgeries she was performing. This not only provided them with resources, but was an excellent learning tool for the young and old. There have been many ipad commercials lately targeting education. Well, really it's the same commercial repeated often. There is a section in the commercial specifically for educators, showing some of the apps that are available for education. One part even shows a paper created by a student on the ipad that is being graded by the teacher. These are both promising media plugs that could help people start to visualize schools, learning, and technology interacting together to bring about change. I know this is a very small step, but we have to start somewhere.

Getting the community involved in classrooms is another step to building awareness about the increased use and need for technology integration. Positive news is spread and schools have more resources and collaborative relationships with people in their community. Are you starting to see where blogs fit into the picture? Blogging is a way for people to connect over similar or varying interests and share ideas, opinions, and feelings. Blogging incorporated into student learning can have a tremendous impact on academic performance and student well being. Whether their blogs are public or private, students will learn the dos and don'ts of the blogging and internet world. Some students may even catch the interest of education reformers in the blogging world. Students can use blogs as a type of academic journal exploring feelings and thoughts on what they are learning. They can also use blogs to expand on information they have learned in school. Teachers and other students challenge each other by posting comments on the blog and help each other to understand what was taught. Subjects are immediately expanded when blogged about.

Since the idea of blogging is still relatively new, and education is still way behind in modern times, it's up to us to spread the word. Blogs are just one way in which education can be transformed by the power of integrating technology, plus it saves a whole lot of trees.
For more ways to integrate technology into learning, stay tuned for future posts!