Lesson Two
Student Audience.
Since I work as a teacher during the day and a librarian during the night, I have included myself in both roles in this lesson, as the teacher and media specialist.
12th grade English class: My 12th grade English class at ISBVI has six students, four boys and two girls. I have one totally blind student, three nearing blindness, and two with vision disorders that can read small print. All but one student are motivated workers who enjoy high interest, interactive assignments that help them analyze their world. Students have disparate technological literacy. All can use computers if they have assistive technology but online searching and use of technology can be difficult with their low or loss of vision. Students are willing to help each other work online, find sources etc.
Lesson Overview
-Students will choose a topic from the list provided in Handout C in English class, and they will collect staff meeting minutes, look through the school handbook, old announcements, the bulletin etc. for information on their topic. They will also interview friends and teachers about the topic. They will evaluate information for accuracy, bias etc, and then write up an opinion segment and a factual segment on their topic. They will save it to the school hard drive.
-Students will go to the Media Center in the evening and open their documents up online. Students will be assigned or volunteer for different tasks. One student will hook up the video camera and tape the announcements. Two students will compile the reports for the show. Two students will work on editing and directing the students to look towards the screen, speak clearly etc. Finally, a student will upload the video to the school website and send the link out to other students/staff.
12th Grade Language Arts Standards:
12.5.8: Deliver multimedia presentations that: use the selected media skillfully, editing appropriately and monitoring for quality.
12.5.10: Deliver a research report that demonstrates that information that has been gathered has been summarized, and synthesized.
-demonstrates that sources have been evaluated for accuracy, bias, and credibility.
AASL 21st Century Standard:
3.1.4: Use technology and other information tools to organize and display knowledge and understanding in ways that others can view, use, and assess.
Information Inquiry Skills:
-Evaluation and selection techniques (Callison, 88)
-Understand how to extract information from human sources (Callison, 89)
-uses content-specific tools, software, and simulations, including Web-based tools, to support learning and basic information research (Callison, 89)
-identifies and uses media techniques such as camera angles, arrangement of people etc. (Callison, 89)
As high school seniors, students have evolved from the inquiry skills of presenting information in written format or in standard Word documents. Students are past the novice stage and are gathering information from a variety of sources and interpreting it as fact or opinion. They are using web 2.0 tools to formulate and disseminate information to others.
Collaboration Process
Obviously, collaboration in this lesson is different because I am participating as both the classroom teacher and the librarian. What I would like to do is ask the daytime media specialist, Jenny Abbott, if she could help my class during the day and allocate a space in the library where we can keep our equipment, documents, etc. I will send students to her during seventh period to experiment with the media equipment.
Learning Objectives: The student will be able to:
-differentiate between human and textual sources for accuracy and bias
-interview staff and students for information
-summarize information into meaningful chunks
-use digital recorders to edit and segment information
-present information in a meaningful way to other information users through visual media
-collaborate with peers to present information
Evaluation Tool:
-Rubric attached as Handout D.
-Students will be evaluated on whether they find information that demonstrates use of both human and textual sources. They will be able to evaluate information for bias and accuracy and collaborate on the project to create a meaningful digital media product. Both the process sheet and the product will need to be included for mastery.
Lesson Plans
Lesson plan that is designed for Mrs. Masih in the library in the evening
Introduction: Meet with students in media production room. I serve as facilitator and director, letting students organize and create the movie.
1. Students will vote/volunteer for each role.
2. Because I know students, I can guess somewhat what they might be interested in:
Samantha: Anchor
AJ: Anchor
Alex: Run camera/room organization
Andrew: Editing and uploading
Jessie: Organizing documents and printing/room organization
Robert: Editing and uploading
3. Alex, who has already worked with Ms. Abbott on the camera, will place it on the tripod. Jessie and Alex will set up table.
4. Jessie will print out stories in Braille for Samantha and text for AJ.
5. AJ and Samantha will practice a read-through of the articles, separating opinion and factual pieces.
6. Alex will record the show. I will be there to answer questions, help with the recorder etc.
7. Robert and Andrew will connect the camera to the computer and watch the video on Windows Movie Maker. I will show them the site, how to find documents etc.
8. Robert will watch the movie on Windows Movie Maker to see how other will view it.
9. Andrew and I will work on uploading the movie to SchoolTube!
Sample Student Work:
I made a sample “student” video and uploaded it on our SchoolTube website! The link is included in the Wiki.
Feedback:
Student Evaluation
I will determine the success of the lesson by whether students want to continue creating the broacast as they initially suggested, switching roles once a month, if possible. I will pass out the following survey to students:
§ What did you most enjoy about making the broadcast?
§ What did you dislike, or what could be improved?
§ What did you gain from the experience academically or life skills wise?
§ Would you like to create a broadcast once a month?
§ Have you heard other students discussing the broadcast
Collaborative Teacher Evaluation:
As I am the teacher and the librarian, I will evaluate the program by sitting down with Ms. Abbott, the daytime media specialist and discussing the initial program with her. She’s supposed to my mentor of sorts. Following is a list of possible discussion topics:
-How students are benefiting from this
-How we could involve other subject area teachers, broadcasts on science projects, math review, American History class etc.
-Other multimedia to use, different websites, publishing sites, editing ideas I can pass onto students
-Plans for the future, involving middle school students
-Anecdotal evidence/standards to present to administration
I would appreciate more technology, so having this collaboration time with Jenny, involving other teachers, interviewing students on the process, and connecting it with state and national media standards might persuade the administration to offer me more funds.