Week 4 Reflection - Reflection on Audio, Images and Video

Students in the 21st century classroom, as demonstrated by the reading assigned for this week, Multimodal Composing In The Classroom: Learning and Teaching for the Digital World, need their lesson and learning to have a purpose. This alongside the message of the need to integrate multimodal lessons into the classrooms, where the ones to have the largest effect on me.

Much like Zachary in the reading, most students struggle to see the point of completing worksheets for questions that they have done hundreds of times in class. The answer to this lack of drive and resistance to complete such worksheets lies within the ability of the teacher to provide any learner "literacies that go beyond linguistic texts to draw across multiple modes." (Miller, S & McVee, M., 20012, p. 2) This means that whilst normal worksheets may have worked in the past, teachers of this century have to expand their horizons and begin to fully utalise the resources that the 21st century has to offer, so that students no longer can ask, "What's the point?" when they have lessons and work which engages them to the fullest.

Digital resources such as video, audio and images can help aid engagement in the classroom and an example of each is placed below.




Image: Taken 2/04/2015














 A copy of my audio example and video can be found on my wiki page - link here - due to a lack of space on this blog page.

Whilst I consider all three of these media incredibly useful for engagement and for use as pedagogies, I will be focusing on video for this reflection.

Videos are everywhere in the 21st century with websites such as YouTube, Vine, Facebook, Tumblr and even iTunes allowing the quick and sometimes viral sharing of videos - albeit some of the content can be questionable.
After some investigation, I was able to begin questioning myself on the application of videos in the classroom. Could it be done easily or was it something that required a large amount of preparation and hard work? Was this a pedagogy and engagement tool that would be useful to students or would it crash and burn like so many pedagogy ideas had before?
I came to the conclusion that yes videos are a lot of hard work and require preparation but on a whole they could and can be extraordinarily useful in the classroom.

Many programs are primarily designed for the creation of videos - one such being Windows Live Movie Maker (A pre-installed program on all Windows PC's or laptops), or Sony Vegas Pro 8 (Not a free one I'm afraid, but one none the less I had already invested in.) Both of these programs, much like many others allow easy editing and creation of videos for any use - if you couldn't understand from mucking around a little, Google is a plethora of knowledge!
Now onto sharing - these nifty little videos can be shared in a wide range of ways although once published, no editing can be made to them. The websites mentioned before - especially YouTube, allow for the quick upload and sharing of videos although I still found that I used both YouTube and good old fashioned USB's to share a video. Videos can be posted to blogs (much like I have done above), wiki's or websites - all of which can restrict viewer access, something that is important in some situations.
The only major concern with sharing a video or creating/editing for that matter, is the issue of copyright. Depending on what film or sound is used in the video, the content could be influenced by many copy-right laws, some of which denies the sharing of videos in any way that involves the spreading of copies, this is copying and pasting the file onto different USB's or computers.

A technical consideration required is the viewing of the videos, riddle me this!
If a teacher takes a group of students on a field trip, and they needed to show a video pertaining to the trip on the way there - how could they go about it? Not very many buses come equipped with Wireless internet - needed to connect to YouTube should the video be there. However, most buses come equipped with a television set - which will, more often than not allow for the connection of a USB. Ta Da! Instant viewing pleasure for the teacher and students.
If the teacher has created the video, then they will have a USB or 'hard copy' as well as any they have uploaded online - therefore access should never really be an issue! However, if they are using a video provided to them, sometimes getting a hold of it can be slightly difficult - but where there's a will, there's a way.

A field trip is only one of the possible requirements or uses of a video for engagement or for use as a pedagogy. Videos in the classroom allow for incredible engagement as videos can demonstrate many different ideas and lessons as well as keeping students engaged.  In History for example, the video would allow provision of information in an engaging way. Concurrently, in English, a video could show an interpretation of a text in a play or movie form which would allow for a better understanding for students. Clearly, videos do not have many limitations as they can used for a majority of students and because of the technological world we live in, engages them entirely.

Whilst videos are predominantly used by teachers to display and aid education for students, videos can also be created by the students themselves! For example, as a classroom activity, students could create a short video on a certain topic to which they then have to show to the class. The use and creation of videos is considered very high on the SAMR, particularly when students are able to use, create and utilise sounds, images, text and video clips  in their own way to aid both their learning and the learning of their peers.
Videos used by teachers however are still active in the SAMR model - however more so in the Substitution and Augmentation stages, as most of these videos are used to demonstrate information and a way to solve a problem in the classroom. When these videos become exciting, or students have to create their own is when higher-order thinking really comes into play!
The creation of videos in the classroom by students has the entire potential to completely change the way we teach - the creation of these videos would force students to use higher-order thinking in order to convey their message in short amount of time in the correct format.

There are many positive benefits to the use of videos in the classroom and with so many easy to access editing programs creating them is a breeze! They allow students to engage with higher-order thinking as well as allowing the information to be accessed at a later date.
All in all, videos are definitely something that is becoming more and more important in the classroom and is something that should be utilised fully.


References:
Miller, S. &. (2012). Multimodal Composing in Classrooms: Learning and Teaching for the Digital World. Oxon, UK: Routledge.