Friday, April 3, 2015

Week 4 Task

Greetings,

Technology has developed and will continue to develop at an unfathomable rate. In the past our learning, communication and expression within the classroom was dominated by text. In contemporary society we are bombarded with endless stimulation but the means of delivery has changed. We now have easy access to the means to both consume and create digital content. With these incredible resources ingrained in contemporary life it would be ignorant to expect text to have autonomy on communication. New technologies and resources being made available there are new options and frontiers to explore. The way in which we teach needs to be adapted to this environment.
This week we had the opportunity to explore the use of Images, Audio, video or digital story telling. I have selected to focus on the use of video within the classroom. Video is wonderful as it has the potential to be an instantly engaging resource.  I believe it is valuable in the classroom for distributing information and checking for knowledge and understanding. It is also a great way for students to interact with technology and creativity as content can be easily created and edited on many different devices.  If this content is then shared perhaps through a wiki or youtube students are enabled to access and contribute to the piece. This allows for students to collaborate and think critically about both outside and self-generated content.  

As an aspiring history teacher I am excited by this technology. It would be wonderful if to enable students to interact with content through the use of film technology. Imagine being able to allow students to create their own propaganda campaign or view footage of crucial moments in modern history. The wonderful thing about the internet is the ability to easily access quality resources. I particularly value the ‘Crash Course History’ segments created by author John Green. For an activity I may ask students to choose from a selection of videos. The students may then be given the option to select on theme that was covered and research it in depth. Perhaps then students could each create 1 minute videos summarizing their findings and uploading it to a wiki. Students would then be able to view and share these videos. Perhaps this activity could focus more on research and students are asked to view a source and create a short video critiquing the source. This could use a combination of footage, audio, text, images, etc.  Students would then watch each other’s videos and contrast the differences.  This applies the SAMR model as it takes the idea of Substitution and Augmentation by using the video and wiki content. Modification and redefinition is then enabled by interacting with content and creating new content whilst using higher order thinking skills highlighted in Bloom’s Taxonomy. This is just one example of the application of this exciting technology in the classroom.


In terms of my interaction with creating videos I have enjoyed being able to easily create content. As an example I would like to share this video that demonstrates my use a go-pro and iMovie.  


1 comment:

  1. Nice Kaylah,
    Love your enthusiasm for teaching history and enjoyed the video link.

    ReplyDelete