Designing digital video for learning and assessment

Video is a powerful leaning tool.  This is how the article starts and it is right on.  Video can be used for many facets of education.  Not only are there videos to teach lessons to students, but there are also opportunities for teachers to video tape themselves and replay the video to self-critic.  There is also the used of designed video.  Designed video is a realistic looking video that has the author deciding on the components and the features of the video beforehand.  The example provided was a child incorrectly solving a math problem.  These types of videos are great learning tools because the can model what we need to do or what we need not to do.  People model other people very well.  This is an added benefit to learning though video.  A students can easily mimic what they see.  

Videos of the past were dim, under budgeted, un-entertaining works of mediocrity.   Research has shown that video can be used effectively in a learning environment.   What needs to be taken into account is the audience.  There are different types and styles of videos appropriate to all applications.  The video designers have the daunting task of aligning the correct video type to the correct group.  A designer needs to keep in mind that a video has to be engaging!  Once the stage is set, a video can reel in attention far better than a book or a slide-show.  

Video can also shape a persons attitude towards a subject as well.  The power of the visual and auditory combination's can bring about any range of emotions the director desires.  With the correct attitude, leaning is made easier.  Complex actions can even be learned with ease.  The more complex the action, the more steps the video is broken into.

The greatest part of this article is that the author provides information on how to create a video lesson, and how to assess this lesson.  There is a breakdown of how one should have a clear target for their lesson, how to teach this topic, and then how to assess the learning by testing for recognition.  The last part is possibly the most important because no lesson is valuable unless you know it works.

As educators, we need to remember that video is a trigger for increasing interest, contextualization, and discernment.  With the correct use of this powerful asset we can bring a whole new leaning tool into our arsenal.

References:

Schwartz, Schwartz, and Schwartz Schwartz. "It is not television anymore: Designing digital video for learning and assessment." Video Research in the Learning Sciences. Print.

Programming by Choice: Urban Youth Learning Programming with Scratch

Inner city urban youth might not be the first thing people think of when they think programmers, although they would be very wrong.  The Computer Clubhouse in LA provides a place for inner city youth to play around with different technologies.  Entertainment can range from playing Xbox to utilizing a recording studio.  The Clubhouse decided to bring on an object oriented programming software named Scratch to see if they could get the youth interested in programming.  They did.

 Figure 1: Code 'Blocks' from Scratch

(taken from article referenced below)

So what is scratch?  Scratch is an object oriented programming software create by The Brainiacs over at MIT to elicit youth interest into programming and then make the learning process easy and fun.  Users of the program create a Sprite, an instantiation of a class, and then through stacking 'blocks' which represent lines of code, create sequences that can have the Sprite perform a multitude of fun activities.

The program was ran in the Clubhouse for 18 months.  So what did the students learn?  Well, first it should be pointed out that they were having so much fun that they weren't even considering it programming.  Now what they brought away from the experience was the understanding of some difficult concepts in programming such as Boolean logic, sequential control flow, loops, conditional statements, variables, and random numbers.

I think this is a great program for youth and I am happy to hear of this success story.  The best way to teach a student is to make them think they are not in school.  By this I am referring to traditional 'boring' school.  You need to make learning fun and that is what was done with this program.  I would even consider small programming exercises for possible extra credit in one of my math classes.

References:

John, Maloney, Peppler Kylie, Kafai Yasmin, Resnick Michel, and Rusk Natalie. "Programming by Choice: Urban Youth Learning Programming with Scratch." Print.

Template-Based Teacher Web Pages

Teachers need to find a link to their students.  In 2002 a school district in New York, the Brewster Central School District, wanted to improve the computer literacy of its teachers.  A survey was taken to assess the districts teachers level of computer competency.

A district wide assessment was provided to see what everyone thought about technology in the classroom.  There was an overwhelming desire to implement technology, although there were many signs that current school computers weren't even being used because the teachers lacked the required computer knowledge.  Brewster Central School District decided that teachers would be taught on a web based platform to create their own web pages.

This plan was going to take some steps.  First a host server was needed. It was decided to go outside the district.  Second, the web page creation needed to be easy to use without a prior knowledge of HTML.  The program selected was oc4e.  This program included predefined sections for basic teacher related applications and it also had the ability to expand upon the basic template to create a web page custom to the needs of the teacher.

A schedule was determined and updating was to be done once a month.

Initially there was those that opposed the new technology mandates, although as time went on more and more teachers came on board.  One of the aspects critical to the program was linking, through demonstration, the instructional relevance of using teacher web pages.  Only two months after the beginning of the project teachers were again provided the same initial assessment on technology.  Across the board there were improvements on abilities and attitudes towards technology.

Wow.  It's great to see a district take the bull by the horns and brave new waters.  Web sites have been around for a long time now and it is about time that all schools require their teachers to have one.  I for one am very happy with the classes that I take where the information for the class, whether it be just a syllabus or a whole class by class breakdown, is provided online.  We need to move past the time where everything was paper based.  Miss a day in class?  Wondering what you missed?  Class web pages allow a student to always stay up to date on what is going on or what will be expected in the future.  I for one know that I WILL have a classroom web site for any class that I teach.

I believe this article truly implements the NETS for Students requirement for communication and collaboration.  Creating a web site for a classroom provides a digital environment for the students to stay connected to what has been happening in class.

Reference:

Moskowitz, Steven. "Template-Based Teacher Web Pages." Learning & Leading with Technology. 39.9 (2004): 4. Print.

What's not on the web

The author points out that students are quick to look to the web instead of referencing print.  They are also eager to get the results of a search quickly and without hassle.  What does this mean for the student research?  It means that things can be overlooked.  The writer brings about an example of how a student researched how Hitler's rise to power was made possible by his personality although neglected to note Mien Kampf and The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich in his research.  The missing element is perhaps, according to the author, a lack of human interaction.  Students are quick to ask the web for all the information that is needed for research although are quick to pass by the chance to ask a person that is perhaps already knowledgeable on the subject.

The author goes on to point to a few examples of how the Internet misses the whole picture and that if you look at the Internet only and not also "in the stacks," a student will be left lacking complete information.  A list is even created noting what you will miss when you only look to the "Free" Internet for references:

• High quality reference books.
• Full-text nonfiction.
• Any book still under copyright.
• Comprehensive journal, magazine and newspaper indexes.
• Magazine articles written before 1990.

I find it humorous that the author references Yahoo, AOL Search and Excite when referencing dependencies on 'ease of search' options that a parent should watch for.  

The author even uses a librarians testimonial to speak to what one will miss when they only search on the web.  Here it is... are you ready...

"The only way to tell if you have found [high-] quality information on the Web is to first conduct research in the traditional way - in your library, in reference books and print materials"

So what do I think of this article?  Well, much in the way that I choose not to use an abacus for arithmetic, I don't use a library for research.   The article brings about some great points... for the time that it was written.  The article was created in 2001.  Much has changed in the last decade.  Not only can you find credible information on the web, but you can take classes on the web.  MIT and other colleges even offer full video recordings and syllabuses for their classes on the web free of charge.  I would argue that information coming from institutions such as MIT are in fact very credible.  So I now am left thinking.  Is there any relevance to this article?  Much as the abacus went, and eventually the need for a library (under many circumstances), this article too has past its useful time.  It had its place; in 2001.  In 2011, the Internet, though still a medium for a lot of incorrect and useless information, is a place that one can obtain all they need to create a school research report.

There was time and a place for this article.  I believe it was quite relevant and accurate to the time it was created, I just firmly believe that that time has past.

As should go without saying, being that the time of relevance has past on this article, I believe that I would not share the information contained in a classroom.

References
Valenza, Joyce. "What's Not on the Web." Learning & Leading with Technology. 2001: 5. Print. 

Speak Up Report

Looks like students and parents are all in agreement on this one.  The voices have spoken and been heard in the Speak Up Report.  What everyone wants... no... what everyone needs in education is the implementation of technology.  The Speak Up Report was created to get the opinions of technology in education.  There were three main areas which were covered in the Speak Up Report: Social-based learning,  Un-tethered learning, Digitally-rich learning.  These ideals fall in line with the ones set forth by such standards as the NETS (through ISTE) which emphasizes six key factors we need to meet: 1. Creativity and Innovation, 2. Communication and Collaboration, 3. Research and Information, 4. Critical Thinking, Problem Solving, and Decision Making, 5. Digital Citizenship, 6. Technology Operations and Concepts.  So what is the most important piece of information we can gather from the Speak Up Report?  It's that we want the same thing that are supposed to be working towards.  The only question now is how do we all get there.

Post #001

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