Technology is not your enemy

One simple example or digital video use would be of a maths class in groups videoing themselves solving problems. The videos are then swapped between groups with other groups being challenged to do the ‘voice overs’ to solving the problems. At the end everyone watches them, has a laugh. Check student learning by getting groups to share transcripts of their explanations but have them delete some key words. Other groups must then fill in the gaps. Teacher must check the scripts first.

Students could reflect on their learning by writing alternative solutions, commenting on possible points of confusion or where they have previously made mistakes with this material, or by making glossaries of new terms and alternative explanations.

Overall, it could be said that using digital video in teaching maths and science requires a balance between giving the students freedom to take projects in directions of their own choosing balanced with achieving the syllabus outcomes. With care, easily achievable!

(Written coinjointly with Mark CLANCY, my digital learning partner)

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Some years ago I had the immense honour to dine and sit next to Robert Cailliau, co-inventor of the World Wide Web with Tim Burners-Lee, following one of his conferences about the creation of one of the world’s wonders. He declares that he “came out of that initial project [www] with a vision: give everyone a keyboard and screen, link them through the CERN–wide network, and the benefits would be huge” (Cailliau, 2008). Well, we can barely disagree with the last part of his quote, as we can regard for certain that the benefits of the World Wide Web are tremendous.

Nevertheless some pessimists consider it ill-fated and forecast its death by the end of 2008 (pretty close isnt’ it?), while others give previsions of enormous importance on our lives (Kelly, 2008). This last video is astounding ad I strongly recommend that you have a look at it.

courtesy: www.opte.org

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For our university Digital Learning course we did an immersion task which consisted in creating an ‘infomercial’ for the use of technology n the classroom. It is available in this previous post, and you will find below the mind maps which reflects upon the main features and issues of digital video in our KLAs (science and maths) and suggests some ways DV might be used in maths and science.

Doing this immersion activity really impressed upon us how digital video has opened up a new world of learning opportunities for classrooms. It does this in two main ways:

- It allows the teacher to create their own videos for instructional teaching purposes, and edit them simply, efficiently and on an ongoing basis, continually refining or updating them.

- It is a great tool for group projects and teaching students both social and technology skills, allowing them to construct authentic, personalised, projects that still incorporate curricula outcomes.

The only ‘drawback’ of using digital video is that teachers need to be able to be adventurous and ‘take risks’. If teachers are willing to do this, and to learn with and from their students, then any extra training or time taken learning to use the technology shouldn’t be too great.

First mind map:

Second mind map (more specific to videos):

And for the curious, here is another Youtube link to our video.

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Filed under: Maths, Science, Technology tagged Maths, Science, Videos

Today I came accross this post of Don who, I must admit, discloses some issues relating to the education of teachers that I think need urgent consideration. Mainly, he says that teenagers now use technology everyday, and that teachers need the training to be able to follow them and include technology in the classroom.

I consider myself as technology savvy, so this creates no real problem for me… But some retraining teachers are past 50 years of age and… for them this is another story.

Don believes that, if teachers are to be trained in technology, this has to be spread over the year and not only on a 4 months subject. In a word, some of us need more time!

With the fear that this post be considered controversial, I’d like to add that I wish some of our uni teachers (who still refuse to receive assignments by email) would probably consider offering the possibility to their student teachers to become more familiar with technology, throughout the year… As the adage says, “do as I say, but not as I do”

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This article from Hoffenberg and Handler (2001), is not the most recent we can find about the benefits of making videos as an educational tool… but surely the principles described there still hold today!

The main idea is that video-making must have a purpose, which means it must be oriented towards the curriculum or, as the authors state “educators must aim for curriculum-driven technology use, not technology-driven curriculum”

Now if you keep that in  mind, there are a multitude of ways to get there and have the students involved in their learning, by creating videos on a topic negotiated with the teacher. The article contains numerous examples or projects revolving around all KLAs. E.g. for science the migration of Monarch Butterflies or the study of water cycles. One can think also to slow motion movies to film the shattering of a piece of glass or the explosion of a balloon filled with water. Or on the other end, accelerated movies showing the rotting of a tiomato or the growing of a plant.

The possibilities are endless, and as long as the video is used to send a message, but more importantly, is created with an educational objective in mind, they are one more tool available to us =)

Reference (sorry, accessible only to the students of UTS):
Hoffenberg, H., & Handler, M. (2001). Digital video goes to school. Learning & Leading with Technology, 29(2), 10-15.

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Filed under: Education, Science tagged Science, Videos