Top o' the mornin' to ya'll out there in Blog World... It's time for my weekly post, and once again I am excited about this week's topic: Digital Media Applications. (For those of you just reading this for the first time, I am a grad student in Instructional Technology, and writing this blog is part of my Introduction to Educational Technology class.) It's hard to believe the term is more than half over. We had a week off last week for Spring Break, but I really didn't take the time off of school - I still did my coursework in hopes to get ahead a little. Did it work? Hmmmm... not really. I have a few big projects coming up, and, because of that, I am trying to keep up a steady pace. What is that saying - slow and steady wins the race? Well, not to this turtle, and I think that this is kind of what I am feeling this week:
Do you believe this little guy!?! Look at him go! (And don't I have obnoxious neighbor-dogs?????)
Yes, I do have a point... and I am getting there. And if you are a regular reader of my blog (THANK YOU!) you know that I usually tangent out somewhere but I always come back to my point... eventually. And here I am... coming back. I am beginning to feel the crunch of the end of the term and it is still weeks away! So I do, in a sense, feel like this little turtle who is scurrying as fast as his little legs can carry him. (Is it wrong that when I saw him outside my window a few weeks ago, I ran to video-tape him for a project I am working on, and as he approached the fence around my yard, I picked him up and carried him back across my yard so that he would have to scamper across my yard again - not once, but TWICE???)
Interesting, though, that I filmed him for a project in one class, and I am using him as an analogy in another class. What a busy little turtle -- little does he know how important he is to me!
So why did I film this little turtle anyway? (Let's call him Stan - I think he needs a name and, according to a friend of mine, Stan is a great name for a turtle.) I am working on a movie for another graduate class I am in, and I am trying to get some footage of animals in their natural habitat. I'm creating a digital story, and while Stan is not the star of the movie, I have a special role for him. Part of our lesson this week was about digital storytelling - where stories used to be told from person to person in the past, they then got written down for permanency when the printing press was invented. Now, with digital storytelling, we can make stories come alive - bring them to life with action and give them personality and excitement.
That is one of the challenges to teaching today's children: bringing action, personality and excitement into the classroom. John Keller, who developed the ARCS (Attention, Relevance, Confidence, Satisfaction) Model, wrote about human motivation and persistence as: "the desires for adventure, for explorations into the unknown, for expanding our boundaries of knowledge, feeling and understanding, and for having the persistence and courage to conquer personal and world obstacles that might otherwise impede these quests" (ARCS Categories). Sounds pretty lofty, eh? But, remember that people want to know that what they are doing has a meaning, a purpose, and that will give them contentment and pride. That, in turn, creates a more meaningful experience, and so on and so on... It's cyclical. The key here is to grab their attention!
Of course, it is important to note here that we are here to EDUCATE our children, not ENTERTAIN our children. I recently attended FETC (Florida Educational Technology Conference) in Orlando. I had the opportunity to explore the exhibit hall, and sat in on a few demonstrations. One was for a 3D projector - and while I was listening, I thought, "When did we start entertaining our kids? Is this REALLY necessary??" Our text uses the word, edutainment, to describe this trend - "an experience meant to be both educational and entertaining" (Shelly 282). I do think that it is important for us to have engaging, interactive and fun lessons, but we are there to teach, not be our students' 7-hour song-and-dance show. When looking at software and educational games for our classrooms, it is important to make sure that it follows the ARCS model.
I am very passionate about digital media applications... multimedia. I am a former elementary music teacher. Music is in my soul. I am a painter and art is in my hands. I am a writer and words fill my head. I have a degree in music education and 2 certificates in graphic design and multimedia. With multimedia, digital media, all my loves and talents can be combined: I am a creator, and the computer is my palette.
I think I should distinguish between the terms multimedia and digital media here. They are often used to mean the same thing, but multimedia can be any kind of media. "Multimedia incorporates a variety of elements. including text, graphics, audio, video, and animation. Originally, a multimedia presentation did not have to be digital. For example, multimedia might have incorporated a slide show for visuals, a tape recorder for audio, and an overhead projector for text" (Shelly 270). When I was a kid, I remember the art teacher showing us how to use different materials to create our art pieces: fabric, magazine clippings, yarn, buttons, papers, chalk, brads, recyclables, markers, glue, paints, tissue, beads, etc - basically whatever we could find - and collage all the items into a work of art - she called it mixed media - in which we created a multimedia work of art. Next, "digital media is defined as those technologies that allow users to create new forms of interaction, expression, communication, and entertainment in a digital format" (Shelly 6). So, in a sense, digital media is multimedia done with technology - digital multimedia.
With digital media, a world of possibilities opens up for educators.
We were given the task of exploring two free multimedia presentation applications: Slideshare and Prezi. As a side note, first of all, I will say, first and foremost, that I love PowerPoint. I am self-taught, and because of this, I really push the envelope on what can be done as far as animations, sound, interactivity, and graphics. After I played around with how to work PowerPoint to my liking, I took a class in which I learned the terminology and the basics properly. I know that is kind of backwards, but I like to play around in a new program before reading the manual. It's amazing how much you can learn by clicking on this or that and seeing what happens. (Save often, and remember UNDO is your friend.) So, going into this activity with my bias already towards PowerPoint, I investigated both SlideShare and Prezi - and here are the results:
A Prezi Presentation.... about Prezis...
I think I should distinguish between the terms multimedia and digital media here. They are often used to mean the same thing, but multimedia can be any kind of media. "Multimedia incorporates a variety of elements. including text, graphics, audio, video, and animation. Originally, a multimedia presentation did not have to be digital. For example, multimedia might have incorporated a slide show for visuals, a tape recorder for audio, and an overhead projector for text" (Shelly 270). When I was a kid, I remember the art teacher showing us how to use different materials to create our art pieces: fabric, magazine clippings, yarn, buttons, papers, chalk, brads, recyclables, markers, glue, paints, tissue, beads, etc - basically whatever we could find - and collage all the items into a work of art - she called it mixed media - in which we created a multimedia work of art. Next, "digital media is defined as those technologies that allow users to create new forms of interaction, expression, communication, and entertainment in a digital format" (Shelly 6). So, in a sense, digital media is multimedia done with technology - digital multimedia.
With digital media, a world of possibilities opens up for educators.
We were given the task of exploring two free multimedia presentation applications: Slideshare and Prezi. As a side note, first of all, I will say, first and foremost, that I love PowerPoint. I am self-taught, and because of this, I really push the envelope on what can be done as far as animations, sound, interactivity, and graphics. After I played around with how to work PowerPoint to my liking, I took a class in which I learned the terminology and the basics properly. I know that is kind of backwards, but I like to play around in a new program before reading the manual. It's amazing how much you can learn by clicking on this or that and seeing what happens. (Save often, and remember UNDO is your friend.) So, going into this activity with my bias already towards PowerPoint, I investigated both SlideShare and Prezi - and here are the results:
A Prezi Presentation.... about Prezis...
The next video (below) is a PowerPoint that I uploaded to SlideShare.... I'm not impressed at all with the results - my animations are bunched up and the sound doesn't work. Turns out you have to upload a separate audio file to their site - not gonna happen after spending hours syncing the audio and animations to the slides.
Next is a link to the real show - which I uploaded to my personal website. It may ask you to download the file; I haven't figured out how to get a PowerPoint to automatically play from my site yet. This little PowerPoint show is part of my Personal Learning Plan, and it is an example of Digital Storytelling. Super E! I created this tutorial to be more like a story, rather than a straight instructional lecture, to teach beginning readers about the concept of silent e - when you add an e to the end of a word, the first vowel makes a long sound and the e is silent. I decided to make the e a superhero - capable of giving his power to other vowels - BUT - he is not so powerful that he doesn't sometimes get tired. ☺
I hope that my PowerPoint follows the ARCS model - Let's see.... Attention - I think my little E superhero concept and picture catch the user's attention. I chose red, yellow, and blue for that exact reason. Relevance - This is an important concept for children to learn: vowels have different sounds depending on their placement. Confidence - Children who view this tutorial will gain confidence not only in silent e but in short and long vowel sounds. Satisfaction - I sent the PowerPoint off to one of my friends who teaches first grade and she said her kids loved it.
So there you have it - edutainment in action!
Have a good week!
~ Christi
References:
Keller, J. (2010). ARCS categories. Retrieved from http://www.arcsmodel.com/home%20-%20goal.htm
Shelly, G.B., Gunter, G.A., & Gunter, R.E. (2010). Integrating technology and digital media in the classroom (6th ed.). Boston, MA: Course Technology.
No comments:
Post a Comment