The Audience is Watching: Effectively Using Video in Your Classroom and in Online Spaces
by W. Ian O'Byrne
University of Connecticut
Mr. Clark, a high school English teacher tried to deal with factors revolving around his students and their relationships with online content. He knew that many of his students viewed online video content frequently. He knew that these same students were posting embarrassing videos taken in his classroom. These videos were embarrassing to himself and other students in the class. He also recognized that some of the students that posted online content were also the ones that had difficulty in his traditional English Literature class.
Looking at the videos they posted online, Mr. Clark noticed a great deal of planning, transitions and high level thinking in the content they created. He also noticed that these videos had been created by some of the same students that did poorly in his classroom, or were in danger of dropping out. If Mr. Clark could figure out a way to incorporate the same critical thinking skills and ownership of work with his students, he knew many would benefit.
YouTube in the classroom
This paper will provide evidence that students are learning when they are creating videos for classroom use. This paper will also provide an easy roadmap to use to help the average teacher begin to safely integrate video production into their classroom. The lessons will include scaffolding to assist all learners, and allow the teacher to maintain control of the classroom. Finally, the guidance will include ideas for rubrics and assessments of these video pieces.
Today’s students live in two vastly different worlds. Outside of school, they successfully and with ease comprehend significant amounts and high levels of text, video, media in general. They do this on their own initiative because they want to - without any encouragement from teachers, administration or parents. Routinely, they are multitasking, digesting and dispersing massive amounts of data, all communicated on a high level, frequently while manipulating multiple media implements all at the same time.
On their own, our students are plugged in, tuned in, and they are doing so with a very high degree of proficiency. Once they enter our school campuses, we expect them to unplug, shut down and leave home the very technological devices they successfully use to communicate and with which they express themselves. We expect them to adjust to the traditional pedagogy we think will prepare them for the future.
Situations such as the one described by Mr. Clark tend to be occurring on a more recent basis. The capabilities of our students, and the relatively inexpensive devices available for purchase make events like this much more feasible. An article in the Los Angeles Times (Abdollah & Covarrubias, 2007) made concrete the new issues in a long-simmering controversy regarding the possession and use of technologic devices in a classroom. Students in the Santa Monica-Malibu United School District collected and posted video clips of teaching staff taken during school hours at the high school and posted these clips to their MySpace account, or directly on YouTube. Officials in the District were not aware of the practice, or the problems being caused, until most of the student population was engaged in the activity. The automatic response by administrators and faculty was to restrict access to YouTube on school property and to prohibit the usage of digital cameras, personal digital assistants and laptops (Abdollah & Covarrubias, 2007) on the school campus.
Situations like the one at Malibu High undermine the authority of the adults in the building and spectacularly defame them in full view of the community. Schools are ill-equipped to deal with the damaging effects that can happen instantaneously in a situation like this. The reaction most schools would have to this situation is to remove the material and discipline the students involved. Some schools, such as Malibu High move further and ban devices, such as cameras, video cameras, and phones from the campus in order to prevent further occurrences. The issue that needs to be further examined is the communicative format in which the students expressed themselves in video, and online. The fact that the students defamed the staff is obviously reprehensible, but we should not overlook the skills involved in what the students have created. Used effectively, in a targeted and structured manner, video can be an effective means for students to analytically and critically express themselves on a wide range of topics.
The significance of the Malibu High episode that elevates it from inappropriate conduct and expression by some inconsiderate students is the response of the administration and faculty. They seem to have forsaken their role as educators seeking to train students in the technological implements necessary for success in this new age simply because some teachers were exposed to ridicule resulting from intemperate conduct during an unguarded moment.
Visual Rhetoric
The nature of literacy has been rapidly changing as new information and communication technologies (ICTs), such as the Internet and video, have entered our lives requiring new literacies from each of us (International Reading Association, 2002). Students are succeeding at communicating, and being visually literate online. The students create identities in these online spaces, and expend the time and energy needed to continue this existence. Our students are successful in this endeavor and we should recognize their achievement and find ways to use this electronic community to further open their horizons.
Students are investing themselves, making critical decisions, and infusing a sense of love in their work in the artifacts they leave in online spaces. They seem to evoke a sense of ownership that doesn’t always exist when they come into contact with literature, standard textual pieces and traditional written words in books. (Hull & Schultz, 2001) This lack of desire, or ownership is often highlighted by the groans that usually accompany new essays and reading assignments.
The new literacies framework informs the process of effectively embedding video into the normal classroom routine. In the most recent review of the theory (Coiro, Knobel, Lankshear & Leu, in press), there are four main points that shape new literacies. These are: (a) new skills, strategies, dispositions, and social practices are required by new technologies for information and communication; (b) new literacies are central to full participation in a global community; (c) new literacies regularly change as their defining technologies change; and (d) new literacies are multifaceted and benefit from multiple points of view (Leu et al., 2007).
The work that educators and students embark on when deciding to safely and effectively embed video into their classroom is not one that can that be dropped into to the school year with the hopes for success. A creative cognitive continuum (Dunwoody et al., 2000) exists in relation to the attitude and aptitude of the teacher, and the students. Both parties use judgment while constructing and analyzing video in the classroom. This decision making process is guided by intuition, and analysis of prior engagement with video. In plain English, cognitive continuum theory (CCT) (Dunwoody et al., 2000) is a general comfort level that the students and the teacher have when working with video in the classroom. If the goal is successful use, then the teacher should view the integration and perspicacity as a growing process over semesters, or years.
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