Reflection
​
The cladograms video above was created with a combination of Screencastomatic, Filmora (for editing) and PowerPoint for each of the “added” points. The idea was to make the content understandable and allow students to proceed at their own pace through the lesson. However, the production of the piece from idea to finished product was difficult. On one hand, I was not very familiar with some of the nuances of each of the three products used to create it, and on the other hand the idea that kept popping in my head around it would be much easier to simply teach the lesson as I’ve done in the past. Planning and creating the voice over that was needed.
Although since then I have become much more familiar with the tools, and use them relatively often to create quick demos and animations, the “full blown” production is not a staple in my classroom, choosing to rely on videos produced by others (PBS learning media, for example), and making full use other tools to crop, pause and use exactly what I need.
However, after taking the video storytelling essentials course on KQED, I have used the the skills I learned to teach my students some of the concepts they have needed to develop their own productions. My favorite one in response to the Trash Talk unit, and the ones presented in the KQED Teach lesson: Source to Mouth Documentary.
Writing
Teacher Created Media
Most of of the media I create for my students is in the forms of websites that act as the central hub for my classroom and each of the units that I teach. My skills at creating videos for teaching revolve around either creating hooks to engage learners or procedural demonstrations.
One of the only videos that I have created with the specific purpose of teaching content is the Cladistics video shown below. I am adding the video as an EdPuzzle (though it is also uploaded to YouTube) to show more clearly how it is used. The complete lesson, including the context and guided notes referenced can be accessed on the BetterLesson website.
Student Created Media
The biodiversity project is one of the choices students have to demonstrate their knowledge from our Interdependence of Organisms unit. This assignment illustrates how students can compile different media products into one cohesive piece of work. The student samples below include not only an infographic, but also an interactive timeline. Along with the written product, the creation of these forms of media allowed my students to summarize their findings, visualize data and discover how these types of products could affect the message they were trying to convey.
​
The rubric used to evaluate these products can be found on the project webpage, and these are the student rubrics (Ibis, Elephant). While I would love to add work at different levels of achievement, one of the important “rules” in my classroom is that while students are working on a project, they have multiple formative conferences, and work to take care of all details. Thus, by the time we have a completed piece, it has undergone multiple revisions and details have been taken care of to produce the kinds of products shown. In its stead, I offer the reflections from the students whose work is being showcased.
