COMM 7728 Video Ethnography project

Video Ethnography project:

Our goal was to create a lesson for our students that incorporates the creation of a video ethnography. Our next step was to become a student and create our own video ethnography.

Students at Abbott Tech create a digital portfolio for graduation.
For the project, they are to answer the following questions:
- What events in your life led you to Abbott Tech?
- What caused you to choose your trade?
- Because of your trade choice, what have you learned about yourself?
- Where do you think you will go from here?

Here is a link to my Video Ethnography:   Becoming a School Librarian
If you prefer YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7Og3ROEv2U

Here is a link to my lesson plan on Google Docs. Why I Chose My Trade

I used Audible to create the "soundtrack" for my presentation. My first recorded draft was just shy of 8 minutes. My goal was to make the presentation no longer than 5 minutes, so I started cutting and substituting audio. I wanted to keep in the non-essential but fun fact about the Bicentennial House Tour, so the voice-over ended up being 6 1/2 mintues long. That's a lot of slides!

The music that kept spinning in my head was "Marian the Librarian" from the Music Man. I ended up performing in The Music Man twice during high school. We did it my Sophomore year at Masuk and my junior year when I was an exchange student in Fremont, Ohio. I looked for a Karaoke version online and recorded it on a completely seperate Audible project, then cut and pasted it below the voice track.

That was the easy part.

I don't have Microsoft Movie Maker or iMovie, so I needed to find a free tool to make my video/slideshow. I tried a couple and finally settled on Kizoa. It was intuitive, I could preview as I went along, and it allowed me to time the slides. I also discovered that I could create "collages" which are slides that can be words, pictures and shapes from the Kizoa files.

I looked through old scrapbooks and on Facebook (You are Probably from Monroe If...) to find photos of myself growing up. I looked on Google to find images that are safe to re-use. It was tricky figuring out where and how to give credit. I discovered how to create my own word slides during the last... three... hours of working on the project. It simplified things quite a bit! Overall, from starting to write the script to hitting "Publish," it took me 16 hours to create the presentation (I did a marathon one day, which helped!)

If I was to truly assign this project, I would ask that the video be 3 to 5 minutes long. It is difficult finding enough images to flesh out a project and make it interesting and personal. I also think, although the project is pretty fun, most students at my school would not take the time to work on it at home, so they would need at least 15 class periods worth of focused computer time. That won't happen!

ED 7720 - Time, time, and more time.

A reflection on OCC.

I work in a technical high school. Our students spend half of their school year learning a trade. They spend approximately two weeks in academics, then two weeks in "shop," repeat. For some students, this is what keeps them in school. I have heard so many stories from parents who say, "After so many years, my child wakes up eager to go to school."

It was fascinating reading the article about the Social Studies study. As we create more and more history, our teachers must cover more material. As it is, our school system starts after the Civil War. As world politics change, our Global Studies gets more complicated. Street Law, Economics, Psychology... there is so much to cover. Our teachers get a defined curriculum and 90 days of potential instruction time. It is no wonder students don't "get" Social Studies!

Yet Social Studies is life. The politics of people becomes the politics of countries. Our students need practice communicating in constructive ways. They certainly aren't getting many good examples from Washington Politicians! The Global Ed program sounds like it brings something that feels like real life into classrooms. SPT, social perspective taking, sounds like a good way to be heard and to listen - scaffolding for real life situations.

The final product/project is not a "mash up" of material found on the inernet, but it carries the components of good Online Content Construction. There is planning and generating a perspective while researching a topic, organizing and composing their position and presentation, and revising as they learn new information from the groups with which they negotiate.

When our Social Studies department organizes their annual debate, many students immerse themselves in the activity. Though the research isn't as thorough as I would hope (I have been a judge), the students love to "one up" their classmates. Teens crave social interaction.

In the Gehlbach article, it did not surprise me that, although they were burnt out by their Global Ed topic, the students were energized about the social aspects of Social Studies -- which is really what the subject is all about - human interaction with their environment and each other.

Gehlbach, H. et al. Increasing Interest in Social Studies: Social perspective taking and self-efficacy in
     stimulating simulations. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 33 (2008) 894–914.

O'Byrne, W. Online Content Construction: Empowering Students as Readers and Writers of Online
     Information. IGI Global (2014) 276-297.

ORMS MOOC Module 4 - Online Content Construction lesson plan

We are a high school that participates in Accelerated Reader.

I am tackling different library media skills in my modules.

This lesson incorporates the idea of making book trailers with ninth graders in the Language Arts Lab.The Common Core talks about constructing online content, using advanced search engines, and properly citing materials. This covers all three.

Book Trailer/Citation lesson

I decided to cite the Prezi I found (which is Creative Commons Licensed!) for practice. It takes a bit of thought, but it is not too difficult for a ninth grader!

An important part of online content construction is the opportunity for review and revision. Students will have an opportunity to "review" another's work to give them extra feedback.

Remixing... not a big fan yet.

For this week's challenge, we were asked to do one of two exercises. Being the overachiever I pretend to be, and having already played with one of the tools, I decided to take on both challenges.

I did a six second story using the Vine App. I played around for "Walk My World" and sometimes make Vines for fun, so that was easy. When I originally read the assignment, I thought I might tape it in school. Needless to say, things this week looked like my Vine!

 A Typical Day
(The words, in case you can't hear them - I work at the best school on the planet with awesome colleagues, but some days, THIS is what my day is like.)

Next, I skimmed the Popcorn directions in classic "online reading comprehension" style and noticed that a Soundcloud clip could be the base of a project. My son writes and posts on that site, so I chose 20 seconds from one of his songs. Since we were asked to do a Six Word Memoir, I chose two photos, one of my husband and I chaperoning a school dance, and the other of us at a Relay for Life event. Finally, I chose six words to describe how I live my life.

My six second memoir

The Popcorn Maker app was frustrating. The song was simple. I had a difficult time downloading photos. Nothing would populate the photo box, then a picture would magically appear -- never the one I hoped for! After finally figuring out the trick, Firefox crashed. Having practiced, my second attempt was much smoother. I did not realize that a photo of the artist (John Markiewicz aka "Daupaz") would grace the opening of the project. It is only mildly disturbing if you don't know ...

ORMS Mooc - Module 4 - Online Content Construction

There has always been some form of "participatory culture." It does not depend on the Internet. Once upon a time, it may have been a quilting bee or a sing-along. Maybe it was a barn raising or a church social. For me growing up, it was putting on shows with the kids in my neighborhood or coaching the Paul Bunyan races* at summer camp. Participatory culture involves learning new skills and contributing your own skills to a group effort. Now, with the Internet, one can be immersed in this kind of activity with a large, diverse set of people, without leaving the house. 

As teachers, In order to guide students toward expanding their online skills and interests that they bring from home, we need to model that kind of interaction in the classroom. So often, it is the teacher dictating the lesson and the student learning and answering. Live or online, we need to help our students become invested in the lesson. When they learn that they can be part of constructing the body of knowledge, and when they are able to bring their personal strengths "to the table," they will learn to become contributing members of a participatory culture.

*Paul Bunyan races are like a giant relay race. Teammates get different "legs" of the race that starts with unrolling toilet paper, includes rowing a boat, and reciting song lyrics. It takes many different skills for the team to compete!