Gary mentioned in the tute session this week, and it was reinforced in the course material, that this week was a monster for information on the ICT front. Totally insane volumes of information, ideas and tools were presented to us this week and it is quite phenomenal who interrelated it 'can' all be as well. After looking through all of the material, playing with a lot of it and just sitting and spending time wondering how it can all add to pedagogy and the curriculum, I decided to unpack the video option for further exploration in this week's blog post.
This week the ICT tools that were introduced to us were images and how they can enhance learning, digital audio and digital video. The ways in which these tools can enhance pedagogy, with the focus of improved delivery of information and promotion of engagement, are limited only by the teaching environment and the imagination of the learning facilitator implementing them. I have enjoyed experiencing many of these tools being effectively utilised during my personal education journey.
I may be easily pleased or just overly curious, but I find still images very engaging. I like to explore the reasons why a particular image has been chosen to 'represent or create engagement' as a hook for a given unit of content or information. Those facilitators that do this well have become masterful at promoting visual literacy. Visual literacy is a term that I have only become exposed to this week. I like the connotation the term suggests. With evolving pedagogy a constantly changing dynamic, all forms of literacy are integral to the learning experience. I have always been captivated by, and envious of the talents, of people with genuine artistic talent. The way they can use an image to bring to life the written word or an idea or concept that is otherwise difficult to communicate is a remarkable gift but also a literacy marvel. Here is my take on a PMI for visual images but impacted on by my personal axiology so it most likely differ to the views of others.
PLUS: Captivating, intriguing, stimulating, engaging and often witty.
MINUS: Must source externally due to lack of artistic talent, time consuming to find an image that supports my viewpoint given that it is externally sourced.
INTERESTING: Tying the image to the content is satisfying, the enhancement of the content is great and the value added by visual literacy is something I have always appreciated but honestly have undervalued through the vision of my personal lens.
My experience with digital audio is far more limited. The most common usage I have been exposed to has been via radio but from an educational perspective podcasts are at the top of the list. The convenience of a podcast has been a highlight for my learning journey. My introduction to podcasts came through my undergraduate degree. The added dimension to e-learning facilitated by podcasts provided me with enhanced flexibility for my personal journey and has had a lasting impact on my pedagogy as a pre-service teacher. The value of podcasts for me have been the freedom to learn in unconventional environments and in a unique and engaging fashion. The future of podcasts for me as a pre-service teacher offer a flexibility to enable students to utilise their study time in ways that enable both freedom and multi-sensory learning. This is a fantastic addition to the teaching toolbox we have been supplied with so far.
PLUS: Engages diversity in teaching techniques, offers freedom and flexibility in learning environments, is friendly for mobile devices.
MINUS: Requires a 'player' of some description, may not suit all learning styles and is not practical for students with hearing issues.
INTERESTING: Personal touch, inventive, ingenuitive, offers scope for stand alone and complementary content delivery.
The engagement aspect and trying something different with the digital video tools were eye opening. What I loved about it was that it wasn't a 'stand alone' ICT tool. My decision to unpack the video was mostly because it was new. Something I have not tried before. The surprise though was how integrated so many other ICT tools became involved throughout the process. The digital video creation process brought together a widely diverse range of ICT products into one complete tool. My end product isn't perfect. There are errors that I have chosen not to remove or 're do' because they highlight parts of the process, strengths and failings of the tools used in creation and also the enjoyment factor I experienced making my first ever 'movie'. I don't want to fix it up for that reason. It is my first effort and for that reason will remain in its initial form.
To actually create my movie I used Windows Movie Maker (Microsoft, 2014). This was a great tool because everything necessary for production was in one place and easy to find and use. The interesting part of this process though was the creation of the input data for the movie. To create this data I used a digital camera to take pictures. In this way I was able to incorporate the digital images component of this week's material into the movie making process. To allow these pictures to be useful many needed to be re-sized. Others required editing and in some parts of the movie images were altered with paint brush. All of this editing was performed using Microsoft Paint (Microsoft, 2013).
Here is an example of the editing performed on a digital picture with the Paint program. In this picture my son, James, is demonstrating how to correctly scribe the letter 'J'. I must also give a special thank you to James' for his willingness to assist with making the still shots that combined to create the movie. An additional thank you also goes out to James' school teachers for permitting me to use their teaching resources for the picture content. The teaching aids are awesome and these ladies need to be given the credit they deserve for these ICT tools (although not digital but certainly engaging). This is not the finished product, but at this point it is appropriate to introduce the first stage of the movie product.
The benefits of this tool as an education aid are diverse and immense. This can be utilised as I have done in the format of an instructional video, it can be used to record a power point, to show externally sourced video clips or in any way the imagination and inventiveness of a facilitator can think of. It is an amazingly engaging and versatile tool as a classroom activity or assessment medium too. The educational and curriculum possibilities are endless. As a student created presentation, digital video production is awesome based upon my very limited creation experience. I did though employ a digital camera to create my own digital images, use Paint to resize, edit and in some cases create a new image from the inputted data, embedded an audio recording added with the movie maker program and used the movie maker program to wrap it all together. Then to cap it off, I am employing the ICT tool of a blog to discuss and analyse the process. Definitely a massive ICT week.
REFERENCES
Fletchet. et al. 2014, Teaching aids for prep green class to learn to write and scribe numbers. Saint Anthony's School. Rockhampton.
Hogan, D. 2014. Video without Audio Content. Rockhampton.
Hogan, D. 2014. Video with Audio Content. Rockhampton.
Microsoft. 2014. Windows Movie Maker, sourced as an app embedded in Windows 8.1.
Microsoft. 2013. Microsoft Paint, sourced as an app embedded in Windows 8.
This week the ICT tools that were introduced to us were images and how they can enhance learning, digital audio and digital video. The ways in which these tools can enhance pedagogy, with the focus of improved delivery of information and promotion of engagement, are limited only by the teaching environment and the imagination of the learning facilitator implementing them. I have enjoyed experiencing many of these tools being effectively utilised during my personal education journey.
I may be easily pleased or just overly curious, but I find still images very engaging. I like to explore the reasons why a particular image has been chosen to 'represent or create engagement' as a hook for a given unit of content or information. Those facilitators that do this well have become masterful at promoting visual literacy. Visual literacy is a term that I have only become exposed to this week. I like the connotation the term suggests. With evolving pedagogy a constantly changing dynamic, all forms of literacy are integral to the learning experience. I have always been captivated by, and envious of the talents, of people with genuine artistic talent. The way they can use an image to bring to life the written word or an idea or concept that is otherwise difficult to communicate is a remarkable gift but also a literacy marvel. Here is my take on a PMI for visual images but impacted on by my personal axiology so it most likely differ to the views of others.
PLUS: Captivating, intriguing, stimulating, engaging and often witty.
MINUS: Must source externally due to lack of artistic talent, time consuming to find an image that supports my viewpoint given that it is externally sourced.
INTERESTING: Tying the image to the content is satisfying, the enhancement of the content is great and the value added by visual literacy is something I have always appreciated but honestly have undervalued through the vision of my personal lens.
My experience with digital audio is far more limited. The most common usage I have been exposed to has been via radio but from an educational perspective podcasts are at the top of the list. The convenience of a podcast has been a highlight for my learning journey. My introduction to podcasts came through my undergraduate degree. The added dimension to e-learning facilitated by podcasts provided me with enhanced flexibility for my personal journey and has had a lasting impact on my pedagogy as a pre-service teacher. The value of podcasts for me have been the freedom to learn in unconventional environments and in a unique and engaging fashion. The future of podcasts for me as a pre-service teacher offer a flexibility to enable students to utilise their study time in ways that enable both freedom and multi-sensory learning. This is a fantastic addition to the teaching toolbox we have been supplied with so far.
PLUS: Engages diversity in teaching techniques, offers freedom and flexibility in learning environments, is friendly for mobile devices.
MINUS: Requires a 'player' of some description, may not suit all learning styles and is not practical for students with hearing issues.
INTERESTING: Personal touch, inventive, ingenuitive, offers scope for stand alone and complementary content delivery.
The engagement aspect and trying something different with the digital video tools were eye opening. What I loved about it was that it wasn't a 'stand alone' ICT tool. My decision to unpack the video was mostly because it was new. Something I have not tried before. The surprise though was how integrated so many other ICT tools became involved throughout the process. The digital video creation process brought together a widely diverse range of ICT products into one complete tool. My end product isn't perfect. There are errors that I have chosen not to remove or 're do' because they highlight parts of the process, strengths and failings of the tools used in creation and also the enjoyment factor I experienced making my first ever 'movie'. I don't want to fix it up for that reason. It is my first effort and for that reason will remain in its initial form.
To actually create my movie I used Windows Movie Maker (Microsoft, 2014). This was a great tool because everything necessary for production was in one place and easy to find and use. The interesting part of this process though was the creation of the input data for the movie. To create this data I used a digital camera to take pictures. In this way I was able to incorporate the digital images component of this week's material into the movie making process. To allow these pictures to be useful many needed to be re-sized. Others required editing and in some parts of the movie images were altered with paint brush. All of this editing was performed using Microsoft Paint (Microsoft, 2013).
(Fletchet, at el, 2014)
Here is an example of the editing performed on a digital picture with the Paint program. In this picture my son, James, is demonstrating how to correctly scribe the letter 'J'. I must also give a special thank you to James' for his willingness to assist with making the still shots that combined to create the movie. An additional thank you also goes out to James' school teachers for permitting me to use their teaching resources for the picture content. The teaching aids are awesome and these ladies need to be given the credit they deserve for these ICT tools (although not digital but certainly engaging). This is not the finished product, but at this point it is appropriate to introduce the first stage of the movie product.
(Hogan, D. 2014. Video without audio)
There were a few errors that came through from the creation of the movie at this stage. A slide is out of position but the addition of the audio covers it over well. Adding the audio track to the movie also had a few challenges. Jamesie left his mark on this one well. The sensitivity of modern laptop microphones is a factor to be very cautious of as is the ICT ingenuity of 5 year old boys. Jamesie was watching 'Alvin and the Chipmunks' two rooms away. I did not notice any sound while recording the instructional component of the movie and given that the movie was saved before the track was added it would have been easy to make a new final copy. However on playback, as you can clearly hear, James managed to increase the movie volume on the chipmunk music routine and we have some unintended soundtrack additions. It is cute though. I have intentionally retained this copy due to the status of being the first effort for me and therefore sentimentally important to me. The full version appears below complete with audio.
(Hogan, D. 2014. Video with audio)
The benefits of this tool as an education aid are diverse and immense. This can be utilised as I have done in the format of an instructional video, it can be used to record a power point, to show externally sourced video clips or in any way the imagination and inventiveness of a facilitator can think of. It is an amazingly engaging and versatile tool as a classroom activity or assessment medium too. The educational and curriculum possibilities are endless. As a student created presentation, digital video production is awesome based upon my very limited creation experience. I did though employ a digital camera to create my own digital images, use Paint to resize, edit and in some cases create a new image from the inputted data, embedded an audio recording added with the movie maker program and used the movie maker program to wrap it all together. Then to cap it off, I am employing the ICT tool of a blog to discuss and analyse the process. Definitely a massive ICT week.
REFERENCES
Fletchet. et al. 2014, Teaching aids for prep green class to learn to write and scribe numbers. Saint Anthony's School. Rockhampton.
Hogan, D. 2014. Video without Audio Content. Rockhampton.
Hogan, D. 2014. Video with Audio Content. Rockhampton.
Microsoft. 2014. Windows Movie Maker, sourced as an app embedded in Windows 8.1.
Microsoft. 2013. Microsoft Paint, sourced as an app embedded in Windows 8.
Wow! Damien.
ReplyDeleteGreat post. I thought your writing style hit the reflection mark and you clearly demonstrated the technical skills required to create and embed the targeted ICT tools.
Keep the good work.