Video, Audio or Images????

This week has involved the explorations of various worlds out there that until now I have known very little about. If there was to be one word applied to the tools that were evaluated this week it would be .... POTENTIAL. Whilst completing the readings and investigating the resources there were endless amounts of possibilities presented for students within the classroom. 

IMAGES:

Images are a powerful tool, they are able to provoke powerful emotional responses and convey meaning to the viewer (The New Media Consortium, 2005). The above images were quickly taken   around my house as I wanted to illustrate that images used in educational settings don't need to be formal representations of topics. Some might view these images and wonder what value they will have within a classroom setting. To me I see endless possibilities, whether they be used as a stimulus to write a poem, the opening scene for a story or the hook for an agricultural unit. They might not be a picture of Hitler, the Beijing Olympics or a World War One plane but they can still elicit deep and meaningful responses from students.

These images were uploaded using Picnik and then posted to my Flickr account and as I took them I know that they are allowed to be upload and distributed. It is vital that all images that are use or uploaded  by obtained legally, such as through creative commons, and all subjects of the photos have given permisson. Without these two factors images must NOT be used.  

VIDEO:

Even though Movie Maker is classed as one of the lower quality video creating and editing products I still believe that large amounts of information, meaning and emotion can be conveyed through a production constructed using Movie Maker. Please excuse that this was a personal video, the video I had planned to upload was an educational one I had designed for university, unfortunately it was stored on a laptop that is currently not working. By using this personal video instead of an educational one however it has highlighted the broad range of possibilities that these technologies represent. Students can use these resources in any KLA for a variety of process from creating, to evaluating in both group work and individual situations. Through asking students to create pieces using this technology, students get to practice their technological skills as well as exercise their creativity. This tool would need to be scaffolded to ensure students feel supported and understand what is required of them, yet the activity still needs to retain a certain degree of freedom so that students need to assess what is required of them. An example of this would be to ask students to create a short movie to illustrate what they had learned over throughout their agricultural unit of work. Instead of just asking for that it would be important that the teacher implement an evaluation activity such as a Y Chart or an Extent Barometer to assist students to engage in the topic at a higher-order thinking level instead of merely reciting events that happened.   

AUDIO:

There are numerous ways the audio resources can be utilised with in the classroom, videos, audio files, voki and power points just to name a few. One interesting audio teaching tool are podcasts. A quick search on the internet results in an extensive list of podcasts that have been uploaded. The following podcast is of the Great Speeches in History. 

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER

The successful implementation of multimedia tools within the classroom will increase learning outcomes achieved and will reap abundant benefits for all involved. Purely placing these resources within the classroom is not enough. These tools need to be scaffolded and implemented appropriately. Students need to be educated in the ways of critical literacy. They need to be aware how to critically analyse and interpret images, video and audio to ascertain key messages and information, put them into the relevant context and then decided whether they are valid or not (Thibault & Walbert). The following images is a thinking routine that students can be taught to assist them to participate in higher order thinking. This image is brought to you By Thibault and Walbert's article 'Reading images: an introduction to visual literacy'. providing tools such as these provides appropriate scaffolding for students to critically analysis andinterpret images to ensure the are participating at a higher acedemic level.

I have implemented video clips, audio and Youtube clips into lessons and the results have been astounding. Students are more engaged, relate to the content more so then they would have had it been presented in a more traditional way and have enjoyed themselves. During a lesson on Chemistry and the atom I played a youtube clip as the hook and every student in the class went from an expression of horror or boredom once hearing the topic to being engaged and actively participating throughout the entire lesson. "21st century literacy has the potential to transform the way we learn" (The New Media Consortium, 2005) and as such needs to be brought to the forefront of curriculum and pedagogy. To ensure the safe,legal and ethical production of images, video and audio in any digital resource highlighted throughout this entire blog please visit this website created by the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development Victoria.

The New Media Consortium. (2005). Global imperative. Retrieved from http://www.nmc.org/pdf/Global_Imperative.pdf   

Thibault, M,. and Walbert, D. (n.d). Reading images: an introduction to visual literacy. Retrieved from http://www.learnnc.org/lp/pages/675