A few Tips & Tricks for Student filming in the Classroom

With the wonderful small, but high quality, Flip Video cameras (and similar brands), it has become affordable (around US$ 150) to bring video production into the classroom.

"Flip it" Open and plug into USB Port

The camera is light, handy AND sturdy that even a Kindergartener can use it to show the world their perspective.

Videographer Job

A great way of making students part of a learning community, giving them ownership, creating and providing digital output to share “the inside of the classroom” with the world is by giving kids regular jobs, such as being the “official” videographer.

Documenting Classroom Learning

We have started handing the Flip camera increasingly over to the students, making it a specific classroom job to record Skype calls, record content tutorials or film a skit, presentation or story. After the footage was recorded, I usually took the raw material and started to edit, upload and share a final movie. Although I enjoy editing and creating these final movies, it takes a LOOOOOONG time.

Alan November’s question “Do you want your students to work more than you do?” rings in my ear. We need to start handing over the film editing job to our students.

Not only do we want them taking more ownership and learning the tech skills of editing, in addition to summarizing and reviewing content.

I recently edited an hour Skype recording between our faculty and Heidi Hayes Jacobs down to under 20 minutes. The experience, although it took me many hours to complete, contributed in many ways to a deeper learning than simply having “attended” and participated in the live conference call. I reviewed, summarized, decided which parts to cut, and which parts would be included in the final clip. Why not give students the same opportunity of creating learning?

Mathew Needleman, in the  a K12 Online 2008 Presentation Film School for Video Podcasters, also points out other benefits of involving students in movie production

• including decision making skills about shots and composition
• making our students aware how others are using them to make a point.

He talks about kids having to learn to understand the media messages that are being thrown at them.  Critical thinking evolves out of figuring out why other have chosen to use certain shots and compositions to make their point and why.

Here are a few tips & tricks for your students as they take over being the film directors in your classroom:

1. Hold the camera with two hands to keep it steady
   1. You might want to lean against a wall, desk or chair
   2. Slow paning (movement or rotation of the camera)
2. Wait a few seconds after pressing the “record” button to start speaking.
3. The microphone is on the camera.
   1. Stay close to the source of the sound.
   2. Be conscious of the noise going on in the background.
4. Take short clips
   1. Avoid running the camera for several minutes at a time.
   2. Try to have “logical” breaks between clips: a new question, new topic
5. Take both close ups as well as “panorama” shots.
   1. Move in and out to achieve close ups and far away shots.
   2. Try not to use the zoom, it makes the footage look fuzzy.
6. Don’t film against a sunny window
7. Know what is in your background
   1. Make sure there are no other groups of students shooting in your background
   2. Don’t film a distracting background
8. Don’t include students who do not have media release permission.
9. Don’t identify students by filming something with their first and last name on it.

What does it Mean to be Literate?

What does it mean to be literate? I am asking myself this question more frequently lately.

Does being literate mean the same for this class?

School Class in 1912- Image licensed under Creative Commons by HistoricBeaverton

Image by Historic Beverton

than for this class?

Graduating Class 1986

or this class?

Class of 2022 ~ Image licensed under Creative Commons by Melanie Holtsman

image by holtsman

The official definition from the dictionary defines “to be literate” as:

able to read and write

There is change in the air though.

Being able to read and write seems to remain as the same definition. What is changing, at a rapid speed though, is the medium we are reading in and writing with.

No longer is reading a handwritten letter or note, a printed sheet of paper, a poster, a telephone book, a newspaper, a magazine or a book the only medium of communicating information. Since having access to the Internet has become mainstream over 10 years ago, being able to find and read a website has expanded the notion of what it means to be “able to read”. New forms of media are being developed and are allowing us to take information in , to be able to “read” in new shapes and forms. With the beginning of web 2.0, the shift from simply consuming (reading) information/content to having the ability of producing (writing) information and content has now expanded the notion of writing as well.

The options, that are available to us humans, to communicate in another form, other than speaking verbally to someone face to face, has exponentially grown in the last 5 years. Being able to expand the reach of our communication has opened up opportunities that have not existed before in history.

So, what does that mean for the initial question of this blog post:

What does it mean to be literate?

I have written often on this blog,  how I see the concept of “Literacy” changing & expanding. I am reminded of the Norwegian video clip about the Medieval Help Desk, when one monk explains to another how to use, this new way of reading text, called a book. The monk had tremendous difficulty in grasping the concept of the book, compared to the scrolls he was used to until then.

What if that monk would have thrown the towel in and refused to become comfortable with the new form of reading and writing? Would he still be considered literate in an era where information and learning is mostly transmitted in a form of a book? What about his job, as a scribe of the church, to write on the scrolls? Would it soon become irrelevant?

As I have been busy in the last few months with workshops about “Blogging with Students“, I am realizing that we can’t just assume that every teacher is web “literate”. Before we start talking about how blogging can support 21st Century skills for your students, we need to step back and make sure that the teachers are literate (enough) to be able to read and write through this medium called a blog!

We need to start out by establishing a common vocabulary base and understanding how printed material differs from digital content. I ask teachers to start reading, reading, reading other blogs before attempting to blog with their own students. Basics, such as knowing how to search for blogs, recognize blog structures, searching within blogs, and experiencing the “mechanics” of how a blog platform operates are important “pre-reading and pre-writing” skills.

Establishing common vocabulary

In addition to establishing common vocabulary, we also need to start a conversation about the importance to go beyond the traditional teaching of the traditional communication methods of reading and writing  (through books and with paper) that still dominates in most of our schools. Otherwise our teachers and students will be like the monk in the movie clip above…being left “illiterate”.

I would like to recommend the following book by Alan November titled Web Literacy for Educators. It is a wonderful resource in the process of  becoming web literate. It goes beyond the basics and talks about being able to “read” and “write” as a researcher, understanding the grammar and being able to decode the structure of the web towards pushing us to being critical thinkers in a an online digital world.

by Alan November

Below you will find my notes as I was reading Alan’s book, taken with iThoughsHD Mindmapping app.

Click to see larger version

It’s a Book! Really?

I received this link to the following book trailer from the librarian at the school I work at.It was very timely, since we just had a discussion about “real books”,  e-books and the advantages/disadvantages of each.

I am very interested in the topic, have written about it before here and here and am monitoring my own reading habits along the journey.

The following video clip illustrates and highlights nicely

• the gap of digital and “real book” readers
• some of the differences
• new vocabulary associated with digital readers
• on one level reading is reading. Reading a book can take you away for hours as can reading and “surfing” a digital book.

As you are watching the short video clip, what are your reactions? Where do you stand in the journey from paper books to digital books? Are you holding on to the “real thing” with your tactile and olfactory senses? Are you a hybrid and enjoy reading both? Have you completely abandoned the physical book and are reading purely online, on your iPhone, iPad, Kindle or Nook?