Ah, the Irony!

If you haven't read it yet, take time to read Tom Friedman's editorial in the NYT two days ago. He discusses the necessity for fundamental educational reform--i.e. 21st century skills--if the U.S. is to remain competitive.

Where does the irony come in? I was reading it just as one of our teachers came in to ask if I could unblock YouTube so students could complete a history assignment. We called the appropriate people and were told 'no.' Yet we're a laptop school with a strong mandate for technology. Go figure.

And so much for educational reform. I've blogged about this before, and probably will again. While I think Friedman's column ignores several factors (take the time to read the comments--some were incredibly thoughtful and insightful), he's not wrong. I work with an amazingly talented faculty, many quite tech savvy.

As always, however, there are those who not only resist using technology, but see it as detrimental. They use tools only in the most shallow manner: watch a YouTube video, but we won't take the time to actually create our own. Keep a blog, but only as a personal journal, no comments, no linking. And heaven forbid we go public!

Friedman is wrong to declare we need a country entirely made up of innovators and creative thinkers. That is never going to happen, as not everyone is wired to think that way. Multiple intelligences alone tells us that. Nevertheless, we can do better at teaching students to work and think more collaboratively and use technology in meaningful ways.

Case in point: About a month ago, we finally opened up the education version of Google Apps for the school. I think three teachers are using it. I was teaching (another!) workshop on Google Docs, and a couple teachers basically said it was too much work to use it, when they could just have students work on peer-editing in class.

I agreed, but pointed out that once students were trained in peer-editing, weren't there better uses of classtime? I don't think I convinced them.

Similarly, too many assignments use technology for its own sake. Students in a school where I used to teach worked on rockets, which was fun for them. But there were few curricular ties--no work on propulsion, trajectories, etc. They just put together a kit. How much more meaningful would it be to have them design and test their own rockets, determining which factors most contribute to maximum lift?

We in the library have a special responsibility to guide both students and faculty towards more analytical engagement with content and technology. I'm not even sure my own work with students is all that innovative. As I teach the research process, I basically have two weeks with students (in 9th grade)--not a lot of time to engage them in thoughtful lessons, though we do some useful stuff on working with primary sources and analyzing websites.

Ideally, I would like to see all students in a semester long class. But that's another job in and of itself! How do others deal with this?

Of course, education alone won't solve our job and financial crisis. If education needs fundamental change, so does our national and corporate culture. When did we become a nation that looks only at short term gain? When did we stop caring about general welfare, focusing selfishly on personal profit at the expense of..well...everything else?

Educational change is AN answer, not THE answer.

Lights, Camera, Take Action: Scripts and Storyboard

If you're entering mid-series: Part One, Part Two, Part Three

The Treatment

In Hollywood, most movie ideas begin with something called a "treatment," a one page summary designed to sell (or pitch) the idea to studio execs. To this point, students have been thinking about their documentary in relatively broad terms; now they start pulling their ideas together into a organized, coherent vision. I must admit, I go back and forth on how I handle this aspect. Sometimes I just have them write an actual outline. That works for content, but it fails to grasp many of the details needed once they write their script.

The summary should consider:

• Characters and what they'll add to the documentary (point of view, etc.)
• What the audience will take away from their viewing of the documentary. How will it affect their understanding of the issues?
• How will you develop both logical and emotional appeals? (In other words, how will you engage the audience?)

Once completed, students pitch their treatments to the class and elicit comments for improvement.

You can find a good explanation of a treatment here.

The Script (aka Screenplay)

The screenplay is a scene-by-scene map of the documentary. In it, students include several key elements:

• Scene Heading: Description of the setting, including whether it's interior or exterior, night or day, etc.
• Action: What the audience will be seeing on the screen
• Character Name: Who is speaking (don't forget the narrator!)
• Dialogue: What the character is saying, word for word (including interviews)
• Parentheticals : Words in parenthesis describing emotions or attitude e.g. (sadly)
• Camera Directions: e.g. fade, dissolve to, medium shot, close-up

It's important to stress format here. Student can be very sloppy about this, and they need to understand this is a different style of writing with its own conventions that need to be followed. They're still building a persuasive argument, but unlike an essay that uses only words, the screen play utilizes visuals, action, and emotional directions too, and needs to incorporate those. In the handouts, I've provided a sample from a short documentary I created about the Model United Nations, along with a link to the finished documentary.

The Storyboard

With a clear idea of their documentary in mind, now students create the storyboard. This is kind of like a comic book of the video, where student plan out their shots before they actually start shooting. You can find sample storyboards to share with you students here, here and here.

You'll find a blank storyboard in the documentary packet; a 10 minute documentary general takes about 3-4 storyboards, if students sketch the key scenes. The notes section should include short descriptions of action, camera angles, sound effects, etc. It does NOT include actual dialogue--that's in the screenplay.

The storyboard should contain enough detail that another group could use the storyboard to create a fairly accurate version of the original group's ideas.

For more information about storyboards, check this site, the Guide to Filmmaking and Adobe's Digital Storytelling Project.

Collaboration

There are a few places where students can collaborate to write their script. I mentioned both Zoho and Backpack/Writeboard in the previous post, and there's always the old standby, Google Docs. What I especially like about Writeboard, is that, like a wiki, it saves all the versions, so students can easily compare and revert.

There's also KidsVid. I mention it because it has great potential, though my students didn't have much luck with it, as it wouldn't save their work. However, they've upgraded the site since then, so maybe they've fixed the problem. The site allows students to use an online storyboard creator to, well, create their storyboard. It provides helpful graphical prompts for what to include and spaces to write their directions.

The site also includes myriad tips for other aspects of video production, so is well worth your students' time.

They're now read to go and shoot their footage! I also give them 4-6 weeks for this (they're usually finishing up interviews, too), with intermittent checks to see how they're doing and discuss problems.

Next time, while explaining the editing process is outside the scope of the blog, I'll give you some fantastic links to tutorials and other helpful sites, along with links to good general resources. Until then....

Part 5:  Resources

SketchCasting: How Cool Is That?

Ewan McIntosh posted about sketchcasting today, and caught my interest. Basically, sketchcasting mashes blogging with podcasting, only instead of words, you draw out your concepts, as a teacher would on a whiteboard. The possibilities for online tutorials, visual learners, etc. seem really promising, especially in math/science, which (I assume!) rely heavily on diagrams, formula manipulation, etc. Here's the introductory video, but you can also view the "how to" on YouTube.