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Tag: mark hofer

VS – Big Picture Resources

As the wave of school closures and opening up of virtual schools has crossed the globe, many educators in our greater community have stepped up to share virtual school practices and resources. Asian international schools were the first to go virtual with some of them drawing on previous closures going back to SARS in 2003. Many of the shares are about managing one’s classroom and finding the right tools for the task.

My focus here the past couple of months has been more on strategic thinking, systems creation, and the wellness of one’s community members. With this approach in mind, I found a few other write-ups that school leaders can draw upon as they lead their communities and facilitate their virtual schools.

I do want to add one lesson learned regarding tools which we have so many to choose from now. Dr. Mark Hofer of William & Mary used the phrase “don’t be a tool jumper” in one of our Ed Tech Co-Op podcast episodes. I documented his thinking in a blog post that connects to the advice that I am happily seeing shared for teachers to find a few tools that work well and stick with them. As virtual school extends then the possibility of adding new technology comes into place as the mission parameters change.

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“And Action: Directing Documentaries in the Social Studies Classroom”

And Action

We know that if done correctly, videography can support our students to support the multiple pedagogies of project-based, inquiry, student-centered, authentic, etc. learning. The combination of students working in teams to create documentaries leverages the learning possibilities of using video. It is one thing to hand a camera to a group of students and say, “Create a video.” It is another way to plan, scaffold and guide students through designing, shooting, editing, and publishing a documentary. The learning rewards are abundant and rich, but it is a challenging task to perform.

Just like our students, we need all the help that we can get to teach and manage the process of having our students create documentaries. Fortunately, two leaders in instructional technology and social studies will guide us through the process.

Kathy Swan of the University of Kentucky and Mark Hofer of the College of William & Mary drew on their experience and outstanding teaching ability to provide the A to Z practical guide for documentary creation in the K-12 classroom. Their book, Action: Directing Documentaries in the Social Studies Classroom, nails it with the nuts and bolts of “how to’s.” But more importantly, Kathy and Mark provide the “how to’s” of using the videography process to help students understand the concepts, themes, and significance of their subject matter.

Look to purchase the book for yourself, your student library, and your professional development library. It is a winner.

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Tips for Supporting Student Videographers in Creating Documentaries

Mark Hofer of the College of William & Mary and Kathy Swan of the University of Kentucky continue to provide leadership in student-created documentaries. One can see some of their work at the Digital Directors Guild and Digital Docs in a Box. Kathy and Mark are now writing a book on how to support students as they produce documentaries. They reached out to practitioners in the field to give them some tips on what doing documentaries and videos in general look like in the classroom.

I put together some of my experiences, which you can find below. I also contacted Sean Moran, the Director of Technology for Washington International School (WIS), to share his insights. Sean’s background is in media creation, and he helps manage the WIS Global Issues Film Festival. Thanks to Sean for permitting me to post his response to Mark and Kathy.

Sean’s Writeup:

As someone trained years ago in production at a time when the film was a physical strip of frames on a reel, and video was recorded on a cassette magnetically, before YouTube and streaming video and phones that double as cameras, I brought a set of assumptions to the task of teaching children about documentary film making that I quickly learned I needed to abandon.

I assumed the ease of consumption of digital video (films, television, internet memes) prepared students to be more thoughtful viewers by the mere exposure to enormous volumes of content. I learned that the reality is just the opposite. The majority of digital video viewed by the average adolescent captures attention despite poor production values, a lack of understanding of film grammar, and a complete disregard for story structure. Because of this, students never learn a vocabulary of composition or structure that can help them create their documentaries.

I also assumed that the ubiquity of inexpensive, high-quality cameras and editing software would predispose students to craft technically competent products. Again, I was disappointed. I found students are so surrounded by technology that they’ve become adept at discovering shortcuts in coping with that technology. They often never learn why they are doing what they are doing — they know it works. This kind of cursory knowledge works against the complete kind of understanding that it takes to shoot and edit an effective documentary piece.

So, I was left with little foundation and bad habits that I felt I needed to break. I concentrated on the following concepts:

1. It’s all about the story. Without a story, a documentary is just a collection of facts. And while that worked for Al Gore in making An Inconvenient Truth, it’s not the best strategy for the rest of us to use in conceptualizing a film. To this end, the script is critical. Starting with a well-researched premise and continuing through diligently transcribed interviews, ensuring the script’s building blocks are solid will position any student filmmaker in creating a documentary that resonates with its audience. This is incredibly detailed work and requires patience — all way before most of the art of the documentary happens.

2. Be prepared. It’s not just for the Boy Scouts. My college television production professor used to say, “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.” Whether Ben Franklin or Winston Churchill gets the first credit for this aphorism, it’s good advice for the student digital filmmaker. Location documents, equipment lists, scripts, storyboards, and shot sheets — these are the things that separate factual documentaries from funny cat videos. The shooting of the b-roll and the editing of the film should almost be mechanical tasks in realizing the film’s vision. So often with students, the planning happens after they’ve checked out the equipment and are about to shoot. Aside from being efficient, it also only leads to good decision-making.

3. Understand basic film vocabulary. Just a simple explanation of the types of shots (long shot, medium shot, close up), basic editing principals (edit on an angle, an action, or cut to a different size), and camera and lighting techniques (avoiding zooms, maintaining headroom and eye line, three-point lighting) will help pull everything together. A student can have detailed documentation for location shots and interview questions. Still, if that student understands the aesthetic tradition fundamentally, the final film will look like a home video.

4. Learn from the pros. Deconstructing good documentary films is the best way to model good technique. From analyzing specific shots and editing choices to looking at narrative arcs and depictions of specific characters, pulling apart good films is essential before allowing students to pick up cameras.

5. It’s about the process. Student films can be wildly successful projects without looking remarkably polished. Student internalization of the lessons of the production process (planning, teamwork, the manipulation of the film’s message to communicate an idea to an audience) is the ultimate goal. Generally, a good product follows a good process, but ‘good product’ is a squishier concept and, especially in the hands of a novice filmmaker, can be more elusive.

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David’s Writeup:

-Have a clear listing of technical and content criteria in a rubric. It helps to start teaching good design skills early in the elementary school curriculum. Allow students to analyze good and poorly-designed presentations to build their foundation knowledge. As the students progress through elementary school, moving from basic presentation tools like PowerPoint to screencasting to video, they need to develop their critical eye to the point that they can help develop rubrics for video projects. We know that multimedia production leads to huge buy-in and ownership from students. Look to go the next step to let them use their developing expertise to devise how to evaluate their work. This is one way to help “TPACK” our young videographers. 🙂

-Ensure the students always have the project rubric in hand as they prepare and shoot their videos. The rubric should contain the normal listing of criteria but also questions to get the students to think about their audience, their intent, how they are introducing and building characters, and technical criteria. These questions should all be fully answered in the scriptwriting phase of the process, but it doesn’t hurt to keep reminding the students as they look to shoot the video that connects to their storyboard.

-It is valuable to immerse the students in documentaries to view independently with questions to help them develop their documentary analysis skills. Class time can be better utilized for discussions as opposed to watching videos unless, of course, the videos cannot be shared via the Web. Using a blended approach via a threaded discussion through one’s learning management system is one way to have the students discuss documentaries. The virtual sharing of ideas can carry over to the classroom, where the teacher can use questions to help the students better understand the structure, strengths, and weaknesses of the videos they watched.

-It is helpful to build the students’ technical vocabulary regarding the nuts and bolts of videography and terms specific to documentaries. We give students a way to talk about their writing using the 6+1 traits. We need to do the same for videography and documentary production.

-Look to put students in the position to analyze their work as they proceed through the video recording phase of the production process. We often start the documentary production process by having teams pitch ideas for their video. Look to continue this process to have teams watch their multiple takes using their vocabulary to analyze their work. This formative self-assessment helps the students internalize their work with a critical eye. One can go a step further to have teams pitch (i.e., show) a few takes of a scene to the class as a whole, where they first offer their constructive criticisms but then ask for responses from the other teams. This could be done in a blended fashion as well. The ultimate goal is to choose the best take for each scene. Students are often more open to feedback from their peers than their teachers. 🙂 The bottom line is that the less experienced students need technical and content feedback as they shoot their scenes. It is easier to wait until the editing stage if the video content needs to be re-shot. This, again, is where a clear listing of criteria in the form of a rubric puts the students into self-reflection mode. For example, one can point to the lighting or sound section of the rubric to ask the students how they would score themselves. The same goes for the content, as in connecting the video to the storyline, character development, etc., which should be easily connected by comparing the storyboard and script to the video scene.

-Using a collaborative app/website like MindMeister to create the team’s storyboard is helpful. Everyone has access to it as they move through the shooting phase of the production process. Changes can be made, notes for specific takes, scenes recorded after shooting, etc. The storyboard can be shared with the teacher, who can give ongoing formative feedback.

-Logistics and adult supervision come into play, especially with elementary and middle school students. Look to work with the students to write up a code of conduct for shooting their scenes when they are out in the school. Working with the administration to get their take on how much freedom students can have in shooting in the cafeteria, classrooms, etc. when an adult might not always be present, is helpful. The older the students, the more one wants to allow them to be responsible and self-sufficient. Finding spaces to record videos in one’s school is difficult. Even if a space is open, students and adults walking through the area can be a problem. Background noise, especially in hallways, is another obstacle the student videographers must solve.

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TPACK and Learning Activity Types: Pathways to Student Learning

I was fortunate this past week to chat with my partner in podcasting, Mark Hofer, about his experiences working with pre-service and veteran teachers in using TPACK and the Learning Activity Types (LAT). Mark and Judi Harris of the College of William and Mary have written a series of articles around these two topics. They have articles that list helpful learning activities for most subject areas. If you are looking for efficient strategies for using technology and various literacies in your classroom, listen to this week’s Edtech Co-Op podcast. Thanks to Mark for his clear and helpful explanations.

 

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Edtech Co-op: New Community for Educators

Mark Hofer and I started a new community to focus on curriculum-based technology integration and new teacher preparation practices. The community centers around the Edtech Co-op blog, where we and other community members will share ideas on the two themes. The Co-op is also involved with Curriki, as group members can assign their lessons and units of study.

We will be producing a podcast every two weeks or so, working to discuss an essential question on curriculum or pre-service teacher preparation. Many podcasts will include guests bringing their expertise and experience to share with our audience. One can listen to the podcasts via the blog or from iTunes.

I am very fortunate to work with Mark, who has provided much to the educational technology community through his articles for Learning and Leading with Technology and other journals. Mark’s students at the College of William and Mary are very fortunate to have a professor who was a social studies teacher and an instructional technologist. Mark’s outreach into schools around Williamsburg, working with teachers and administrators to analyze and improve their practices, is another way that Mark makes a difference for students in K-12 schools.

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