NOT MY LAST VIDEO!!!

Absent Student Video from Wendy Chapman on Vimeo.

My video this week is a tongue in cheek intro to what I hope will be at least a weekly entry into a class blog that I will be adopting for the 2013- 2014 school year. I have a giant daily calendar that takes up my one and only white board in my class, I have a box that I place any daily work for each day of the week, and I spend a considerable amount of time explaining the use of these items to my students in case they miss class. Students will still come up to me at the start of class and ask "Did we do anything" when they miss. I can use this as an intro to any labs that I film for student makeup.


This is is the first time I actually used my students (family doesn't count) in the making of a video.I have sat for weeks watching other people in the class doing this and seeing how the students seem to enjoy the experience. I can now say that my first student inclusion video was fun for me and from what I observed, for my students also. I will be the first to admit that I have control issues and I truly admire those who are able give up that control and let the students own their learning, and it is for that reason that I plan to make the use of video making an assessment tool in my classroom. As I have already indicated in a previous blog, I want my students to create videos that will be the culminating product for a unit. I want this to be done at least twice in the year so that the students might be able to participate in some of the critiquing techniques that we used in this class and use those critiques like we did to improve their products. I think that going over some of the video making techniques would not be a waste of time, but in the interest of time in the science class I may make it part of the enrichment class that we teach in middle school. The communication of one or multiple science concepts in an effective manner would require students to develop a multi-step plan and then to execute that plan. A rubric as well as peer assessment could be used to evaluate the final products.




We all learned that their are many ways to plan and create a video. Details we didn't think about sometimes caused us to abandon ideas, but a team of videographers may have helped us to find solutions we could not find on our own or remember how to do techniques that we were shown in class. It may be a good idea for future classes to allow at least the possibility of collaboration on videos.


Finally I'm just wondering if any of us will be able to just watch a tv show or a movie ever again without noting the special shots like point of view or over the shoulder or use of transitions, etc... or more importantly will we be able to watch those presentations without annoying those around us as we point out what we've come to learn.

Haiku from Wendy Chapman on Vimeo.

Lol. Haiku gone awry. Dead mouse found in my driveway a week ago has been plaguing my family everytime we exit our vehicles and enter the house. Instead of removing it, I decided to film it and include it in my haiku this week. I tried to do a touchy-feely spring theme but, it didn't quite work out. I really like the clock clip even thought the clock is laying in the grass because it didn't work. I wish I had held the flower shot a little longer or inserted another clip of it to drag it out longer, and I definitely wish I had a better transition to the dead mouse and had gotten closer to the maggots.

Before I started this class it was with the intention of using this new skill to create videos that I could use in "flipping" a lesson. I had visions of videotaping instructions or background information that would allow students to prepare for upcoming labs projects. As the class progressed, I saw how I could use the videos to support those students who had missed labs and reinforce the lab experience for other students as they participated in the making of the "lab makeup videos" These of course could be posted to a class blog for students who missed them and also for students who would need to review the lab before a test. Now after viewing the video that I have included in this weeks lab, I can see how I could use video making to engage my students at a level I have never before thought possible. Making the class project the generation of a video along the lines of the one created by the history teachers where the information is integrated in a meaingful way with today's music and dance would be an optimum learning experience. Breaking the video up so that different groups worked on different aspects of the concept presented would allow for the type of critiquing that we have been doing in class. I wouldn't do it for every unit but I will do it for more than one so that the critiquing can be something students can use to view thier growth in this area of skills.