This week I thought I would write about the racism stop it national video competition. This is a competition put on by the Canadian heritage association. Any one from the age of 12 to 18 living in Canada can compete and make a film for the contest. Students are to create a one minute video on eliminating racism. The top ten videos are selected and they are shown on national television. I believe it is usually MTV that airs them. When I was in high school I made a couple of videos and submitted them to the contest. Many people from my high school in Yellowknife North West territories made videos and submitted them. Many of these videos have won and been aired on national television. I think this is a great contest to get students interested and motivated in eliminating racism. It allows them to work together and collaborate and share ideas about what racism is and how to stop it. I think it would be great for all teachers to motivate their students to make videos for this competition. Digital media is a very powerful medium. Even if they do not win they will all get participation certificates in the mail. Also the video can be made in any language. The link for the official website with all the rules and regulations is http://www.pch.gc.ca/march-21-mars/contest/index_e.cfm. Below is a film a student submitted for the contest, I hope you enjoy!
Have you ever thought of robots as educational tools? Well I definitely have not until I discovered Robo Panda. Robo Panda is a robot created by the WowWee company. It is fairly new technology. This panda is able to tell stories, play games, you can teach him tricks, etc. If you teach the panda tricks he will remember them and show you them again if you request to see them. This robot bear is very responsive to touch and has sensors all over it’s body so it can tell you what part of it’s body you are touching. This robot can also walk around and do sit ups. It is pretty neat. I don’t know if I would use this in my classroom, but it is just an example of a an educational tool that is out in the market. There are many different educational games and toys out on the market now, and I think it’s really neat that some kids get this kind of educational interaction out of school. I have put the video about robo panda on my blog for you to check out. If this concept interests you I also urge you to check out another Wow wee video where this guy actually commands his robot over the internet using skype. You can watch as the robot travels around and interacts with other robots. The link for this Wow Wee video is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eK_qg6a29qM. This kind of technology really interests me ,but it also scares me at the same time. There seems to have been a lot of advancements with robots since the furby came out. I wonder if robots will ever play a role in education?
Today I watched a K to 12 presentation entitled “Design Matters” by Dean Shareski. This presentation focused on creating things that are meaningful and beautiful in a classroom environment. Dean had 3 guest speakers talk about their views on design in a teaching and learning environment. The first speaker, Christian Long talked about how the focus on design has to be on learning. He talked about how a teacher integrated walking into their students lesson plan so that they got to experience an aesthetic learning environment outside of their school. I think this is a great innovative idea because students sometimes need to get out and explore to be inspired to write. I know when I went to school not all of the classrooms were conducive to learning, some didn’t even have windows. I am starting to see how different spaces change the way a student learns. The second speaker was Clarence Fisher and he talked about how he changed his classroom spaces into studios. He said he likes the studio feel because it is a much more open environment, it has lot’s of things going on, and the teachers role changes to the master of a profession who guides their learners. One of Clarence’s most important points was that when you change a space in a classroom, you open up new possibilities for learning. I think this is true, when I was in elementary school one of my teachers had us turn our classroom into a camp ground. This new environment was an inviting and and exciting new place to learn in. The third speaker talked about similar things like how design is beautiful, powerful and exciting in a classroom setting. Dean then started talking about planning when it comes to technology. He said that it is a necessity to pre-plan with technology. One example he gave of pre-planning was storyboarding for a short video. Planning allows the students to come up with a clear purpose for their work. Dean said without adequate preparation the project will fail, it is a teachers job to help the students with their planning process so that that they can help frame the students ideas and what they want to accomplish with the tools. I can relate to this whole idea of planning ahead, last year I was a film student and it was critical that I planned all of my short films ahead of time. The more planning I did the better my final product was. I believe planning ahead is critical even after you are out of school, it helps you to form your objective and come up with a clear path to achieving your goals. The next topic Dean focused on in his presentation was imagery. Dean believes that all students should learn photography and video technology because these skills will allow them to create high quality images and films which will convey powerful ideas all on their own. He also talked about how images support and enhance ideas, especially when it comes power point presentations. As a future art teacher I would have to say that I agree, images can carry a lot of intrepid meaning in them. Also anyone who can see can interpret visual information, they don’t have to speak the same language or live in the same country to understand the meaning of a picture. I am going to refer back to an old statement to cement my point, a picture carries a thousand words. The next topic Dean talked about was white space and transitions. He talked about how students tend to over use effects especially when it comes to power point. It is a teachers job to teach students how to position key elements to give emphasis to a specific topic. Dean says the thing to remember is that less is more. The next topic Dean talked about was constraints. Teachers need to put constraints on projects they assign their students because this helps the students to focus their ides. I only wish they did this more in university! I find it very hard to narrow down broad topics into useful and coherent bits of information. I will quote Dean in saying “good writing is like good design it is about eliminating”. I have never really thought to much about this idea before. I think I am starting to see the benefits of these constraints. The last thing Dean talked about in his presentation was some ides of Dan Pink. Two tips are to avoid templates when creating multi-media because it offsets creativity and look at advanced features of software to see how this will add significance. The overall moral of Dean’s presentation seemed to be that “branding matters”. One of the main things I will take away from this presentation as a teacher in training is that design matters and it is critical to the learning and teaching environment.
