Please go to the following website:
http://cityvoicescityvisions.blogspot.com/
Scroll down until you get to the video on education. View this 4.44 minute You Tube video. It does take a few minutes to load. Then write a paragraph in this blog about the impact of this message on future teachers.
Then scroll down to view some of the i-movies on poems that the students have created. Consider how you might create an assignment in which, instead on the same old boring class discussion on a poem, students, working in small groups, might create their own i-movie (of under 2 minutes) to share their interpretation with the class. Then write a paragraph in this blog suggesting a specific poem for which this assignment might work.
Welcome to our online discussion forum. This blog is our chance to discuss in depth the ideas that we mentioned in class. You can also post hyper links, images, and other resources to extend and enrich our discussion. Enter and enjoy!
Connie Mietlicki, Ph.D.
Research Director, Center of Excellence for Learning Sciences
Tennessee State University
Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville, Tennessee
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Creating Your Own Blog Directions for Cohort Groups
1. Go to https://www.blogger.com/start
2. Click on the orange arrow that says Create Your Blog Now.
3. Create a Google account (if you did not already do so above).
4. Name your blog. Check on availability by clicking Check availability.
5. Choose a template. Scroll down to see all your options.
6. Your Blog is Finished will pop up on the screen.
7. Click on the Start Posting icon at the bottom right hand corner to begin posting.
8. Start with a welcome message.
9. Let me know when your Blog is created, and I will hyper link it to the main page.
2. Click on the orange arrow that says Create Your Blog Now.
3. Create a Google account (if you did not already do so above).
4. Name your blog. Check on availability by clicking Check availability.
5. Choose a template. Scroll down to see all your options.
6. Your Blog is Finished will pop up on the screen.
7. Click on the Start Posting icon at the bottom right hand corner to begin posting.
8. Start with a welcome message.
9. Let me know when your Blog is created, and I will hyper link it to the main page.
Cohort #1
- Debbie
- Kristin
- Liz
- Vernice
Cohort #2
- J-Furg
- Princess
- Point 5
Cohort #3
- Christina
- Michelle
- Traci
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8 comments:
Only 26% of the readings are relevant to these student's lives. WOW! (And they only actually read 49% of them). Being a college student, I shook my head in agreement with everything in this video, and then shook my head in disgust. I think this video is just proof that teachers everywhere need to take another look at what their students are doing on a day to day basis in their own lives and what is relevant to them. A perfect example is the student who said she will look at 2300 web pages and 1281 Facebook profiles in a year. The Internet is what students do, it is their ‘thing’, technology is their ‘thing’, and this video conveys that message and much more. Not only do the students spend a majority of their time using technology, but they are multitasking, and as stated above, the readings are not relevant to their lives! For future teachers, this video has great impact. I think that it encourages us to implement more technology in our classrooms, such as blogging, podcasts, and i-movies. I think that seeing this video and how it was made by students also shows future teachers, like me, that it can be done, and it can be simple. These students filmed the entire video in the classroom, how simple is that? This video is definitely the truth and hopefully teachers will save students by bringing technology into the classroom.
As for creating an i-movie about a poem, I think that the sky is the limit. I really think that this would be such an awesome assignment because every group will have a completely different movie! I thought that “Crossing the Bar” by Alfred Tennyson would work well and also “That Time of Year” by William Shakespeare.
If I can be so frank, this video p*ssed me off. (In more polite words, this video irritated me.) I understand that "the system" is messed up, and we as educators can take some of the responsibility for fixing it.
Let me share my college experience before I came to GSU. I went to Truman State University in Kirksville , Missouri. Only twice did I have a class larger than 30 students. All my professors knew my name. Even if I had a laptop, I would not use it to surf the internet during class because almost all the material I was learning was relevant to my life. I like learning, and most of my professors had my undivided attention.
I chose Truman State because it was affordable. I incurred no debt while at Truman State. I picked Truman State because I knew my class size would be small and that I would drown in a lecture-sized environment. Did these students not research where they were going to college? Yes, a large class causes your professor to not know your name, but that is the environment these students chose for themselves! As a student, a person has the choice of his or her major. Students need to choose something that will be relevant to them. If a person's professor is assigning readings that have no interest to the person or are not relevant to the person's life, then he or she should drop the courses and choose a different major!!! The students did show they understood the luxury of attending college and owning laptops that cost more than some people make in a year, yet they were not doing anything about the problem. If they cared that much about how some people don't have the luxury of reading pieces that have nothing to do with their life, then these students could be taking volunteer trips overseas or raising money for programs like Heifer International.
As a future teacher, I see how viewing this video is valuable because we all need a reminder to make our literature selections relevant to our students. I also understand how bringing instruction to the students' world will be beneficial with wikis, blogs, and the like. Overwhelmingly, though, this video also supported the unfortunate stereotype of young people as being selfish and ungrateful. We need to be empowering young people to act in a proactive manner not encouraging them to blame their professors or the all-encompassing, vague idea of "the system."
As for the poem idea, I think it is a great idea. I think the iMovie would be fun for "The Raven" and "The Poison Tree." These are two poems that are old but are also interesting. Students could have a lot of fun acting out scenes from the poems and using various props. Students could pick music to support the mood of each poem as well.
I thought this video was interesting. I went to Norhern Illinois, before attending Governor's state, and I could relate to the huge class sizes. In response to Julie's comments, I went to NIU, because it was a state school and much cheaper than any private school, so there wasn't much choice there. My English classes, thank goodness, were actually small, but the subjects that I was not interested in to begin with like Math and Science were in huge auditoriums. I hated it. Anyway, I think it is so important to include technology in the classroom, and I'm really excited to be getting these ideas on how to do that. I think that using technology will get the students so much more engaged. There is still so much to learn, and I know my students will know so much more than I do about technology. So, maybe it would be a good idea to ask the students for their ideas about incorporating technoloy. That would be a constructivst classroom.
As far as the I-Movie poems, those are really neat. I love the idea of having that as an assignment. Good poems to use for this would be "The Road Not Taken" or "Chicago."
I have such incredibly mixed emotions about the video on education. On one hand, I think that as future educators we DEFINITELY need to include technology in the classroom. As a matter of fact, the more technology the better. On the other hand, I found the video very sad. These students are communicating so much through technology that their socialization skills are being stunted. If they email, text, use Facebook and MySpace, how the heck are they going to learn to talk to one another? A perfect case in point, my daughter does NOT talk to the neighbor across the street. They played together when they were seven to ten years of age, but grew apart. That is completely understandable. However, when a huge tree fell in my neighbor's yard during a summer storm, my daughter had the complete scoop. Not because she talked to the neighbor, but because she has "friended" her and knew all the details. While I believe it is important to communicate with students and get them to read, even in an electronic format, I still believe that there is a lot to be said for curling up with a good book under a nice, warm blanket and getting lost in the pages. I can't do that staring at a monitor.
As for the i-movie, it's a great idea. Poetry can be such a dreaded thing for students that ANYTHING we can use to make it more relevant would be extremely helpful. Students are already comfortable w/technology, so why not introduce poetry/teach poetry with a medium that they enjoy. It would probably make poetry more tolerable in the eyes of the students. ANY poem that you feel is teachable can only be enhanced by the use of technology.
This education movie serves a distinct purpose in creating awareness for educators to understand the importance in connecting learning with any student's life, regardless of age or grade level. Serving as a reminder that many, if not most, students will somehow engage and entertain themselves if learning is not relevant to their lives. In creating learning connections, educators must get a message across that goes beyond the classroom and into their everyday lives in order to keep students wanting, needing, and yearning for more. Connection is the key to learning; without connection information often "goes in ear and out the other." ("My teacher says that I don't listen, at least I think that what she says.") Connection creates relationships, is that not what it is all about?
Teaching poetry through technology is a fantastic idea, what better way to connect with students by reaching into an idea or skill they already possess.
An I-movie allows students to expose his or her individual interpretation of a poem which can assist in broadening the perspectives of each viewer, allowing others to question and gain insight into a piece of poetry; hopefully activating CRITICAL THINKING!
I, too, went to a large university (Purdue). Of course, this was during the Stone Age. Fast forward twenty years and I just recently went through the college selection process with my son. He also chose a Big Ten school and my biggest concern was that he would be reduced to a number and get lost in the crowd. This happened to me, but as Julie points out, I could have done something to change that and I chose not to. So, while I was certainly touched by this video, I also believe some of the culpability lies with the students. At a high school level, however, this becomes a different story. I believe the statistics noted in the video could very well apply to the majority of high school students - that's what worries me. Right now I am torn between two viewpoints. I understand the importance of incorporating technology into the classroom, but as I was walking the hallways at Crete-Monee High School and passed one classroom after another showing a YouTube clip it occured to me that perhaps these students are being entertained, not taught. Will this lead to teachers constantly striving to one-up themselves in order to get their students' attention? I think we need to strike a healthy balance. On the other hand, I do think this generation expresses themselves better using the available technology, so i-movies, and the like, are great tools to allow students to fully express themselves and find deeper meaning in the literature they read. As I watched a few of these videos the poetry I would like to use for i-movies would be works by African American poets during the Harlem Renaissance. Or, I also just read the works of Maya Angelou, which were deeply moving.
What I like about the i-movies is that the students, not the teacher, makes them. The students get to interpret the poem by thinking through, representing, and then casting their interpretation through images and sound. This process is empowering for students and makes them creators of new knowledge. By accompanying their i-movie with a heuristic (what you were trying to do with the shot and how pleased you were with it: what and how), they re-translate the image and sound back into words.
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