Notes from the Multimedia Trenches

A good day to build and fly dreams.

 

To create we take in experiences and give back an interpretation of that experience. Lately I have been trying to cut the time down between the experience and the interpretation. Speeding the process up requires both better techniques, and tools. I have listed some of the resources used this week.

• Good Creative Commons music is hard to find. Jamendo is one of the better sites for free music. I have used it to find music for several videos.

 

http://www.jamendo.com

 

• It is time to upgrade my multimedia tool box. The Panasonic Lumix GH1 is on the top of my shopping list for July 1^st.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/30/technology/personaltech/30pogue.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1

 

• Journalism is the place to go to learn about multimedia software and hardware used in storytelling. Journalists are inventing the genre. Adam Westbrook is a respected name in the industry.

 

http://adamwestbrook.wordpress.com/2009/04/08/great-free-apps-for-multimedia-journalists/

 

• I started to get excited about the idea of having one device that would accomplish all my multimedia needs, especially for video, sound and images. Here is an article that has got me thinking.

 

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2345163,00.asp

 

• Twitpic from the Tweetdeck

 

I began to use Tweetdeck at the VSS conference and am continuing to discover its many features and general usefulness. I also have been using Twitpic to share photos. These two applications are incredibly easy to use.

 

• I have been using this Firefox add on to download video clips. It’s great for public domain material.

 

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3006https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3006

 

• Jing allows a user to capture and annotate multimedia content. It is free and relatively easy. It is good for creating mash-ups or explaining concepts to others. It’s made by the company that makes Snagit.

 

http://www.jingproject.com/

Disruptive Innovation

Rural Communities Celebrate Diversity

 

Michael B. Horn is an academic, writer and generally brilliant guy who gave a talk at the Virtual Schools conference in Vancouver about Disruptive Innovation. His presentation was about how social or technological changes unexpectedly come along and cause existing systems to crash. He used models from the business world which were both illustrative and shocking.

 

I have written before about the newspaper industry and how the internet has almost completely undermined its model of operation. One of the main problems is that the newspaper companies are unable to let go of their attachment to the word “paper” and create a new model based on just “news”. This is perfect example of a disruptive technology and the difficulty that previously successful companies have adapting to the new reality.

 

Education as we know it has been around for a century, with very little structural change. But change is coming. We see most of the change happening at the upper levels with universities, colleges and high schools being forced to restructure around delivering courses via distance learning.  Rural students are perhaps the biggest winners in this new technology because, provided there is a relatively fast internet connection, any student can be connected to a vibrant and efficient learning program. This can be a two-edged sword for rural schools. In the future students could remain in their home community and participate in enriched distance learning at a small local high school, or that school might be shut down while distance learning instruction was provided to the student at home. The latter option would be limited but very cost-effective.

 

Around the province and around the continent distance learning is the fastest growing segment in education. And with continued refinements in methodology and technology it is poised to grow even faster. Fortunately for educators we are not faced with the immediate extinction that The Boston Globe is–a situation that has evolved in just a couple of years.  However, even primary education is likely to be radically changed in the next 10 years. Opportunities to provide rural students with cutting edge instruction will be easily within our reach. Our survival as teachers may depend on whether we are ready and able to take advantage of those opportunities.

The 8 Rules of Engagement – What works for e-learning?

 

 

She ain't heavy she's my partner!

At the VSS conference I listened to Ellen Wagner deliver an inspiring and wide ranging talk about technology and its impact on teaching. In my skeletal notes from that talk I have eight words written that Ellen might have spoken. If what I write makes sense it comes from Ellen. If my post sounds bizarre and incomprehensible then I claim sole ownership.

 

Ellen’s talk resonated with me because for the past year or so I have been trying to rearrange my teacher DNA. I needed to do this to accommodate the transformational principals of Formative Assessment. This is not easy as I have been following an old-school pattern of teaching that was ingrained many decades ago. Somehow Formative Assessment was able to shake the foundations of my pedagogy and inspire me to teach differently.

 

Whether from Faye Brownlie, The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics or Ellen Wagner, the elements of Formative Assessment are being hammered deeper into my consciousness.  As a teacher on the cusp of entering the Web 2.0 world of education Ellen’s talk spoke directly to me. These are her rules of engagement as I understood them.

 

The 8 rules:

1 Attention- This is the easiest to do, at least for a brief time. Any teacher worth their salt knows that getting student attention is not only the first step to learning, but also essential for survival in the business.

2 Care- How do we do get students to care about what they are learning? The learning task would have to be meaningful to their lives and we the teachers would need to be honestly enthusiastic about it.

3 Motivate- Good teachers do this; I can do this, sometimes. The problem is I am not really sure how I do it.

4 Choices- When you give choices you give up some control over the outcome. For many teachers this is scary stuff. But I have made the transition from rows to groups, so I guess I can embrace the concept of choice in all of my lessons too.

5 Connect to a Community- I believe this, but it takes effort to accomplish on a regular basis. Sometimes a community can be the group of four that you work with, your whole class or school. Other times a community can be the population of the place where you live, or the whole world via the internet.

6 Induce the Students to Participate- Learners need to become engaged in the process of learning. They need to do the work of learning, the teacher can’t do that. This to me is the key to all the other rules.

7 Opportunities to Contribute- Students need to have a chance to have their voices heard. This is a hard one for my teacher DNA. Somewhere along the line I accepted as fact that a quiet classroom was a good classroom. It is still a challenge to provide constructive opportunities for students to contribute in everyway to their learning experience.

8 Memorable- Teachers need to make the experience of learning memorable for the learners. I suspect that if we satisfied the first seven rules of engagement for learning that the eighth will by default be accomplished too.

 

No one ever said that teaching got easier. If we are lucky the experience may get better. I believe with Ellen’s rules of engagement for e-learning there is a better chance of that happening.

The New York Times, Social Networking and a Student’s Wiki

 

 

Does social networking and new media have the potential to alter the educational paradigm that has existed for the last 100 years? I have often thought that I could time travel and swap places with a teaching colleague from a century ago. Sure there would be an adjustment to social mores, but as long as we kept our respective classrooms under control and read the chapter we were to teach the night before – things would be fine. But with the emergence of Web 2.0 I’m not so sure.

 

In terms of the technological impact of social networking there are parallels between the news industry and public education. However, the current responses are very different. Educators continue with little change in their pedagogical practices. The news industry, on the other hand, is in a process of extreme structural reorganization. Consumers are getting their news on-line from a wide variety of nontraditional sources: blogs, websites, YouTube, and other social networks. Advertisers have abandoned traditional news sources in favor of web-based advertising. Craig’s list and EBay are used instead of the daily classified section. The situation is so serious that the New York Times  is rumored to be planning the termination of its print edition by May!

 

How are we doing as educators in regards to Web 2.0? I was told a story this week about a grade seven student who with his classmates created a wiki. The purpose was to reflect the learning and collaboration taking place in their vibrant classroom. The wiki was a multimedia affair done with good taste, skill and enthusiasm. Once completed the class teacher was introduced to the work and invited to join.  What was the response to this spontaneous display of student creativity? The teacher was uncomfortable with the initiative and approached the principal. The principal was equally perplexed and contacted senior management. The outcome of the collective discussions was to not include the student work as a part of the classroom environment.

 

I wonder what the news editors at the New York Times thought when they first heard about the internet? I also wonder what educators thought when they first heard about the internet.

 

Ken