Final Project - Powtoon

I decided to keep the video short and sweet, so I added simple audio and fixed my transition issues, timing and put in my references.  My reflections are condensed in my bonus video below.  Enjoy!



Bonus Video Reflections!

PowToon - Final Project - Rough Draft

I have condensed my Summary of Learning Powtoon Video into a rough draft for your viewing pleasure.  Please note that I still need to work on transitions, timing, and put in audio.  I will also have a few slides at the end to reference my quotation sources and credit my images.  I plan to ease the video flow with audio of me reading the slides and explaining why I feel they were important to include, touching on my growth throughout the course and in peer comments/interactions.

Reading #12 Thoughts

Pg. 169 Motivations 

1.     To promote creativity and self-expression.

2.     To increase student motivation and engagement in the classroom.

3.      To strengthen students’ ability to resist the negative messages present in mass media, digital media, and popular culture about violence, materialism, stereotypes, and sexuality.

4.     To help students use their own voices for advocacy and social change.

5.     To modernize the curriculum and make it more relevant to students.

Quote #1

“When teachers use mass media, digital media, and popular culture to address social, political, and cultural issues, students develop the capacity to make sense of and critically analyze the world around them” (p. 168, Hobbs).

I find this absolutely true!  After creating my PSA for this class, I showed it to all of my classes one day last week and it inspired great discussions.  My students are 6-8^th grade, but regardless of the age range, discussions and ideas were profound and unique.   My PSA cautions people of overusing technology and making it too important in our lives, while real relationships fall by the wayside.  Students of all ages have seen social media addiction occur either in their immediate families or in those of their peers.  Watching my PSA brought the subject to the forefront of their minds and many stated, “they had never thought of it this way before.”  Many students were going to mention this in their families in the hope of spending more quality time together and making sure they don’t break laws by being on their phones while driving, which many students admit their parents actively do.  This hit home to my age-group of students and if I made ½ of them think more seriously about the time they spend online, then I accomplished spreading awareness and a need for concern.  The more I learn about digital media and storytelling, the more I want to utilize these tools in my classroom.  It is a fun way to identify with the topics of discussion and “own” your opinion and creative freedom.  It is perfect for ART! 

Quote #2

“In building coalitions, it is important to respect and honor our varying priorities and find partners who can both support and challenge us” (Hobbs, p. 169).

There are 2 art teachers at my school.  My last colleague in the department left this past summer to go work in Marion county, at a school 2 blocks from her house.  I didn’t blame her for wanting the job that saves her from driving a half hour every morning and afternoon, but I was apprehensive over who would replace her as my departmental cohort.  I had no reason to fret because the gal who replaced her is much easier to work with, is very easy-going and supportive.  We both want to utilize technology more in our classrooms, so decided to devote a large portion of our budget this year to buying a department set of ipad mini’s to assist us with integrating technology in our lessons and providing easy resource venues for our students.  We are VERY fortunate to have this allowance of budget and I fought hard to get these devices approved and the money allocated.  We are extremely excited to get our 14-ipad minis to share and are over the moon happy to have our students start utilizing them.   We have not had the order filled yet, but it is going through the proper channels towards completion.  I feel so very fortunate that my colleague is motivated in the same way I am for advancement of skills and technology integration in our lessons.  We are on the same page for the long term and I can see our collaboration growing more impressive through the years.   We have varying skill sets with technology and I feel that it will be a dynamic pairing of attributes for our students to benefit from.  I am thankful in this month of holiday cheer for Michelle and can’t wait to see where these ipads take our instruction!  We have lots to look forward to, and we hope Christmas will come early for us ;)

Quote #3

“School leaders can inspire educators by helping teachers make large and small steps toward embracing new ideas and instructional practices” (Hobbs, p. 170).

In order to push through my application for ipad minis for my department (referenced above in my response to quote #2), I had to gain support and approval from my school Principal.  Luckily, she is very motivated to integrate technology into daily instruction, so the support was quickly and happily given.  It helped that money was put aside by me from last year, in order to fund our order completely, but I am sure she would have helped in any way she was able to make this dream a reality.  I know my department will implement the devices into our instruction immediately, and I am sure my Principal will request we share our tools and knowledge with other faculty members considering fundraising for their own class sets of ipads.  We will definitely share our motivation and experience once these devices have been received.  We won’t be able to contain our excitement I’m sure!!! I am very blessed to have such a cooperative and dedicated Principal who supports new ideas and tools for instruction advancement.  I know without her approval, we would not have been able to order our ipads.  It’s a win, win for me and my students!   

References

Hobbs, R. (2011). Research As Authentic Inquiry. Digital and media literacy: connecting culture and classroom (pp. 168, 169, & 170). Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Corwin Press.

PSA

My PSA is directed at anyone linked into social media and their mobile devices.  I created my PSA to highlight ways our phones are taking over our lives and our senses of self-worth.  I focused on statistics and facts on social media and the negative impact these sites are having on our lives.  My images and information are very straight forward and leave no hidden interpretations.  I decided to record my voice throughout because I feel it is a good pull for audiences that tend to be lazy and don't want to read.  Listening is much easier, so audio is very powerful in this case where I want to influence change and reflection in my audience.  

Week #11 Reading Thoughts

I enjoyed the video tremendously.  Largely because it brings to light trail-blazing Journalists who followed their passion around the world telling stories of un-sung heroes to help spread awareness and collective empathy.  The world would never see or hear amazing, tragic or inspiring photographs and stories without people like Sarah willing to get out there and face danger to acquire it.  I look up greatly to adventurous, committed professionals that carry their passion to such lengths, like Sarah.  She is far from finished with her mission.  She has built a company to teach and inspire others to follow this path of adventure and discovery.  It is beautiful and well done to people worldwide for pursuing their passions. 

I believe anything is newsworthy as long as someone is sharing a creative element in telling a story or conveying a message.  Humans feed off news and storytelling, good or bad.  We (people/cultures) are drawn in by many things, all of which are valuable instructional tools we can use with our students, depending on the situation and subject. 

Student motivation is a tough nut to crack.  I believe you can motivate students by being obviously interested and excited yourself (as the teacher), you can draw them in with stories yourself that make segues into your lesson relatable to students.  There are many ways to successfully accomplish a motivated lesson and personally it really depends on the day and the climate of students that moment.  This chapter gives us many avenues to grab student motivation, primarily by tapping into contemporary culture and topics hot-button and deeply relevant and interesting TO THEM!  Making connections to news stories that they are hearing and seeing currently is an excellent way to draw them in and contain their interest.  Keeping our media deconstructions in mind also, throughout and showing them how to properly manage sources of information that are credible helps them weed out the useful information from the “BS!” that is often put out there by un-educated or misinformed observers. 

Authentic learning is crucial!  Students need to have opinions and emotions about REAL events that are occurring now and that perhaps hit closer to home than others.  It is amazing how one class of students can learn from each other just through mere discussion of experience and opinion.  I enjoy bringing my own personal, sometimes emotional experience into a classroom; depending on how emotionally mature and able students are to receive such knowledge and experience.  We had a death at the start of school.  One of our students was struck and killed crossing the road.  This was devastating and tragic, but deeply relevant to everyone about the fragility of life and experience, and that we are not guaranteed time.  I took this tragedy and made it into a discussion about life and its purpose and meaning.  We mourned the death of a beautiful soul taken too soon, but we also held an informal memorial and celebration of life and all that we are given on earth.  Instead of focusing entirely on the negative, we made it a deeply emotional reflection that we could all learn from and appreciate as a reminder of what we hold dear.  This discussion was well received by my students and I felt as a teacher, this relevant teachable moment was essential for their emotional development and character building.  This is a real example, but other connections that are less right here in our community could be made to discuss and inform students in lessons as well. 

Place-based education is a great tool!  I experienced much of this growing up in 4H, an active group of students that grow and learn though community involvement to improve everything possible about where we live and enjoy.  This organization helped foster many of my teaching interests, along with build up my sense of responsibility and self-worth.  Being actively engaged in improving ones environment for the greater good is a great feeling of satisfaction and purpose.  I encourage my students to become involved in similar organizations as much as possible, as these groups gets students out there in the thick of the experience and help them solve- problems and often times provide manual (hands on) impacts on their communities.  I hope with our future shift to digital things, we don’t lose touch with people and the importance of building strong community foundations within our children.  Place-based projects have countless advantages for kids and I sincerely hope they continue to be sought out.