digital technology – A Box of Thistles

Digital Story Telling: 5 x 5 videos

Published on 14th September 201814th September 2018 by robeanneLeave a comment

Whilst preparing for a workshop about digital storytelling, I came across this idea of video stories which I thought would be quick and easy to do. I was attracted the idea of short glimpses of life that together create a story.

The premise is simple; take short 5 second clips of your everyday life. Link them together without any editing and publish, no commentary.

Ha! Easier said than done! First of all I kept forgetting to record, and then when I did, the videos were too long. Never mind, I thought, I can trim them in the process of putting them together.

Next question was which video creation tool to use. I started with WeVideo as I have used that quite a lot already and know that it is reasonably easy. All seemed to be going well. I did add a title slide and a end credit slide, but other than cropping the too long videos to 5 -6 seconds, that was it. Until I processed the videos and got the final result.

The videos I had taken in portrait mode on my phone were tiny little rectangles on the screen. Unfortunately, that was most of them! In editing mode, the videos played fine and filled the screen albeit with the black background showing on each side. I edited, trying to fiddle with the size but whatever I did made no positive difference. I googled it, tried ‘help’, but the only information was that it was best to use landscape if possible.

I managed to make this one out of just the landscape videos:

I still wanted to use my portrait videos so decided to see how iMovie coped. I haven’t used iMovie before despite having a MacBook for 3 years! (I know, I know! but you get used to something…) So, it was little unfamiliar to me and took me a while to get my head around the interface. But 15 minutes later I had a video that was made up entirely of portrait videos and it worked!

Next frustration was uploading to YouTube. Several failed attempts before checking with Google – Is YouTube down? Err! Yes! 77 error reports in the last 5 minutes!

Anyway here is the iMovie. The story behind this one is that as part of Kingitanga Day celebrations at the University of Waikato, there was a Hikoi Rongoa to look at the native plants and how they are used for wellbeing, nourishment of the body and soul.

These videos are simple, no (or little) editing, no narrative, so I wonder how they might be used to stimulate further storytelling in the classroom. A prompt for children to interpret, to invent, to imagine the dialogue, the connections, the missing links?

As a stimulus to create their own videos and then to add a narrative, an interpretation.

I have still shots of the Hikoi Rongoa and a brochure with information about the plants that we examined. I want to explore the stories behind some of those plants and how they were used. How people worked out how they could use them and which ones were edible, which were not, which needed to be processed, which healed and which soothed. I plan to tell the story of our hikoi rongoa …..soon!

PD in a Box

Published on 1st April 201830th April 2018 by robeanneLeave a comment

An outside concert in a park with lots of attendees. Inset are other photos or different types of people attending, a middle aged couple, children, three men holding hands — photo credit: Anne Robertson 2018 CC-BY 2.0

I was at Womad last weekend in Taranaki ,and the range of different people, all ages, all walks of life, was phenomenal. They were all there because of a common passion – music. Conferences also bring together lots of different people. Their passion? Learning. Because they want to interact with like-minded people, they want to learn, they want to share their passion and their learning. Just like music festivals all conference goers are the ‘converted’; most have chosen to be there and they have often given up a Saturday or a holiday to be there.

Professional Development (PD) in school is different – people don’t usually choose to be there. For many, it’s a ‘must do’ as part of their professional standards, it is another thing on top of a very busy workload. And just like National Standards and NCEA credits, doing something because you have to, leads to ‘ticking the box’, compliance, low level thinking and no improvement to pedagogy and learner outcomes.

So, how do we make the PD pill palatable? Even more, how do we make the PD pill into an exciting and mouth watering feast? OK, maybe I’m getting carried away….

I am fortunate to work as a facilitator for PD and feel privileged to be invited into schools to ‘deliver’ their PD either for a one off session or on an ongoing basis over 6 months, 12 months or longer. With that privilege goes a huge responsibility.

Some schools want their ‘PD in a Box’. ‘What sort of package can you deliver?’ they ask. ‘We have an hour every Monday morning. That’s our slot. What do you have that fits in there?’ they say. And what do they do with the PD in a box? Unwrap it, enjoy it for an hour or so, then put it on the shelf and forget about it. Box ticked!

As facilitators, we need to support schools to align the differing PD initiatives – Positive Behaviour for Learning (PB4L), Digital Technologies, Change Leadership, Culturally Sustainable Pedagogy, Health and Wellbeing, and so on… so that teachers can see the connections, workload is not massively impacted and that they build sustainability and it leads to improved pedagogy and happy, successful teachers and learners..

I have asked myself more than once why schools have a “PD in a box” approach?
Is it because they don’t have a big picture vision?
Is it because they don’t have a plan?
Is it because of a lack of SLT engagement? – e.g. one DP given the PLD portfolio and the rest just checking out?
Is it because SLT have different portfolios and they don’t work as a team to align them? – each initiative is separate and piled on top rather than overlapping and enhancing?
Is it because of failing relationships, high staff turnover, unstable rolls?
Is it because they don’t get the WHY?

I think it is some of all of those things and maybe many more as well. But let’s take the last one. I think lots of schools do get the WHY, what they lack is the ability to fit the WHAT into the HOW given all the other constraints and competing imperatives they have. It’s very difficult to see the wood from the trees when you are lost in the forest.

Maybe we should help them to shift thinking from the PD Box to the “The PD Puzzle”.
They have the picture on the box lid – their vision, so now how do they go about fitting all the puzzle pieces of PD to make it?

wooden puzzle showing stages of development - jumbled, almost complete, complete — Photo Credit: Anne Robertson CC-BY 2.0

EducampBOP – a challenge to secondary school teachers!

Published on 8th August 201515th July 2018 by robeanneLeave a comment

Well, today was my first “Educamp“. I have thought about going to several over the years but have never quite made one. Mainly because they are on Saturdays and my boys have always had some sort of sports fixture. But also because there are very few, if any, secondary school teachers at them. They are not aimed solely at primary and intermediate schools but IMHO they tend to be the teachers who are most inclined to share. It is a shame because there are so many secondary teachers out there who do such great things in the classroom that are worth sharing. The “unconference” style means that everyone has a voice, everyone’s ideas are valued, there are no “experts” there are just learners and colleagues (and, of course, friends). However, today, I was there to learn and to meet people. In my new role as Connected Learning Advisor I am keen to meet as many teachers as possible from all sectors and BOP and Waikato are the regions for which I am responsible.

I would love to see if we could gain some traction for a similar sort of event for secondary teachers. I am unsure if it is because secondary school teachers are too locked into their subject specialties or because there is too much competition with regard to exam results to want to share too much? I know that each subject area has their own “conference”; languages have “Langsems” all over the country when teachers share what they have been doing, but these cost a significant amount of money and not all teachers go because of confernece costs and the relief costs on top of that. What if secondary teachers just got together and shared their pedagogy, how they integrate technology, the tools they use? So many approaches can be used and adapted across subject areas and as junior programmes are re-organised to be more open, task-based, cross-curricular and student-centred, there is a need to share practice and learn from each other.

Tweeting is normal at such events and the power of the “tweet” is being realised by more and more teachers. Powerful learning not just for adults but for students too. I wonder what the breakdown of users is between primary/intermediate and secondary teachers in NZ? My bet is that primary beat us hands down!