Video Sharing in a Changing World

Except for the names and a few other changes… the story’s the same one! Reflections on the Process of Learning about Video Sharing

Change is difficult. A fact all of us know, but it is inevitable. When it comes to technology, in schools, change can be staggeringly slow. Cost, shifting philosophies, time and tradition stand in its way. The use of over 50 user-generated video sharing sites (Wikipedia, 2009) has had some affect upon teaching, used as a distributed learning tool, but negligibly as a shared learning tool.

Neil Diamond hit the nail on the head with this song, at least with this line which always sticks in my head from “I am… I said”.





Every step in our journey with technology is about change and it is moving exponentially faster.

1953: I’m born, to be the middle child in a middle class neighbourhood.

1959: I watch my first television show… Ed Sullivan

1970: I learn to program a computer using punch cards. I learn to love Neil Diamond.

1984: I own my first computer, an Apple

1987: I am teacher librarian in a school with a computer lab!

1987: I own my first colour TV

1993: I’m an elected trustee in a major school district in Alberta. I have been using my own PC for ten years for writing articles and a novel (unpublished, I confess). I’m in the wealthiest school district in Alberta, and I am a constant advocate for email for all staff and trustees. I am using personal email to my limited contacts, but cannot communicate with my colleagues. My beautiful daughter, Emily is born. The chairperson of the board at the time introduces me at a function as “the only person who would go so far to promote email by naming her newborn the next closest word to email, Emily.”

1996: My advocacy finally works. The argument for years was the inappropriate sharing, the ‘fact’ that email would have no educational value, the item spent off-task… this sounds just like YouTube today. Children should not view videos unless they are filtered by the teacher.

2007: I use YouTube and other video sharing sites to find interesting videos.

2009: I learn to download videos for educational and personal uses.

2010: YouTube is blocked in my school district, as it is in many Alberta districts. There are considerations about inappropriate content. Students can not choose Google Videos. They may come upon something that would be inappropriate. We choose to block it rather than teach appropriate usage. I am still in a school with one computer lab. I learn that YouTube can be joined, that it has communities, that it is empowering as a teacher, that it is participatory. I learn to embed a video in a blog.


My personal computer use has been very business oriented (lessons, spreadsheets, income tax, some web work, and Facebook.) I have never made a movie before this week. I had taken a few clips on my camera that are saved but never shared.

I surprise myself that I have ‘believed’ that the ultimate use of YouTube is to view clips, most of which are personal videos. Don’t get me wrong, I have spent many an evening trolling and enjoying videos. I’ve found many that I’ve been able to download and share with my students as educational tools. (a skill most of the teachers on my site do not share) I’ve visited the site hundreds of times, but did I ever notice that I could ‘sign up’? Perhaps, but if it did, it meant nothing in terms of practical or educational utilization. I didn’t own a video camera and didn’t want to post baby films.

Throughout the 90’s I chaired the Central Alberta Media Services (CAMS) which distributed film and videos to member school districts. We talked about Video Streaming and the opportunities that lay if we could move in that direction. Still, my mindset was about receiving information, not in the sharing of information. I consider myself somewhat tech-savvy so this week of learning about video sharing was a huge wake up. I had bought into the district line, at least passively.

I’m a hands-on kind of gal. I remember and learn from what I do. I’m also a single mom – owner of a puppy – community involved busy twenty-first century teacher and teacher librarian. During the week, I did not have time to read the texts, but I looked at my skill set and realized that I had never made a video. Here was my jump-in moment. I was in charge of the assembly on Friday and needed to share the learning that was happening in the classroom. What better opportunity did I have to figure out, create and share a video? My plan cemented in stone when my principal suggested that, given the time frame, it was not possible. I set about a new learning curve.

As usual, I put the cart before the horse. In the process of learning how to create a video and to cut and edit (admittedly simple once you learn to use MovieMaker), I still did not understand the power of the medium. Embedding it with voice clips into Glogster added further challenges. Finding a way to be online in our gym was a major challenge. The result, though, was a six minute video that demonstrated the power of literature circles to a school that had never used them. The response from teachers and students alike was uplifting, because they saw Literature Circles i in action with the children they knew in a situation that was familiar and therefore possible for them.

To view the Glog and embedded video I created about literature circles, visit my Glogster site.

http://mrscavanaugh.edu.glogster.com/glog-707/
http://mrscavanaugh.edu.glogster.com/glog-568/

Stage two, of course, has been reading the literature including the texts and the trailfires. Should I have read them all before I created? YES!!! I knew that to start with, but found that I couldn’t manage the evening time during the work week. I knew the creation process of video making was crucial. Reflectively, I would have read Davies and Merchant first. I would have read about the disruptive affect of YouTube (Richardson, 2009) before. I would have had the students holding the camera and editing and producing the video as a richer learning opportunity. I would have read YouTube4You (Proquest, 2009) as a lengthy but clear 'how to' for YouTube' before I even began. I will have my students create a video of their own literature circles in the next two weeks, selecting and cutting and pasting the comments that they are most excited about. If I had been able to spread this project out over time, it would have been a different video. Nevertheless, I cannot teach students until I have figured out the process, so the learning and process was valuable if not where I would like to take it.

If I had read Richardson first, I would have bought an external microphone. I would have created the storyboard first rather than as an editing process. I would have put more planning into place.



Thank the Lord for the Night Time…
Discussion of Video Sharing in Terms of My Own Personal Learning

It is only after the kids are in bed, my personal daily obligations are fulfilled, that I can take the time to reflect on where this tool takes me personally and professionally. An insomniac, I can and will stay up as late as I need to in order to work through a problem, however I will pay for it the next few days.




As a multi faceted learner, I am thrilled with the opportunity to learn using videos. I find the medium more engaging than reading, as I can see, hear and write at the same time and it helps me retain the information presented. Due to a short term memory deficit, I look for any tools that will help me retain information. In a classroom setting, particularly if using Smart Boards with a Smart Video Player, this seeing / hearing /writing can also be joined with quick slide reviews of the videos combined with classroom discussion, adding a further depth of learning strategies to meet the diverse needs of the classroom. Further, if we take the learning one step further, and have students then create videos (thereby teaching a skill) we create powerful learning opportunities for our students. When information is presented to me in varied formats, I learn better. When I read text, I retain little. I imagine I am no different from most of the students we teach.

I am an involved person at a provincial political level. There is no doubt that future elections in Alberta will be highly influenced by the videos that are created in online video sharing spaces. No longer are the communications controlled solely by the traditional media, but by the use of social networks. The first negative as have appeared just last week against the Alberta Liberal Leader in Facebook. They appeared like a Progressive Conservative ad, but were disclaimed by that party. Now the video has been removed. Immediate clips of valuable information and political messaging can be immediately accessed by a broad range of constituents for little cost. As a secretary of a provincial party, it will be incumbent for me to advocate that our methods of communication need to make YouTube a central part of our future campaigns. I will be sharing Politiking online : The transformation of election campaign communications (Panagopoulus, 2009) with our communications staff.




There are huge risks in video sharing as every parent knows. Paul, my eldest, was 17 when he was hired to build the email database for the school district. He was computer literate from the time he could touch a computer, and now as a computer engineer and software designer, he knows more about how to use the computer than I can ever hope. Emily had her first and secret web site using NeoPets at nine and was already receiving inappropriate emails. Is the answer to keep our children off of the computer? Is the answer just to give up and not protect our children? I believe that the best solution is somewhere in between. As a parent, I monitor my monitor children’s use of the internet. We have had many discussions about appropriate use of sites like YouTube. Its community control emphasis (Davies and Merchant, 2009) can lead to some inapporpriate materials. It is my responsibility to teach them or else the utilization will just go underground. It has made for active and interesting discussions about trust and created some challenging moments in our relationships. It has paid off with an intelligent, well versed teenager who uses social websites for positive reasons and rejects inappropriate content accordingly. Way to go, Emily.





Heading for the Future : Discussion of Video Sharing in Terms of Teaching and Learning

As a professional, in my role as Teacher Librarian and as a Curriculum Coordinator, I have realized just how important it is that we respect and collect forms from students in September to give freedom to share videos and pictures. My school chose not to distribute FOIP forms (Freedom of Information Protection of Privacy) unless it was needed. I now have no ability to share resources, even without names school information, unless I poll every parent and get unanimous agreement. Even more important, for future years will be my role in assuring parents of the value of video and photo sharing as an educational tool. As with email in the past, video sharing is an invaluable tool for communication, self reflection, and communication, understanding the world, our own identity, people and the future of our society.

Challenges:

It is without doubt that some parents will not release permissions, but knowing our restrictions and parameters ahead of time will facilitate student created video sharing. The use and misuse of the media is something that could and should be addressed in a parent seminar. Care will always have to be exercised in how we share personal information and respect the privacy of our vulnerable students. That, however, is a challenge that is possible to overcome with teacher / parent literacy and respect.

Permission is just the start, and the challenges and rewards of using video sharing in the classroom are manifold. The two greatest obstables are ones that can be overcome with the right resources, both fiscal and human.

Without appropriate tools, it is extremely difficult for a teacher to imagine creating and sharing videos. When there is only one school camera, when the classroom has only one lab fully booked and no classroom technology that supports connectivity with the students, the teacher feels overwhelmed with technical obstacles. With old, slow computers without headphones, without microphones and with a 30 minute time block in the lab, there is limited opportunity to introduce a keyboard, much less how to use a camera and to work through developing a video and uploading it to a site. Once cloud computing becomes fuller and capable of a larger range of tasks, perhaps then schools will find using netbooks and wireless labs financially accessible. Perhaps when we as educators worry less about locking one school camera up because it is equal in value to 3 textbooks, we will buy Flip Videos and Cameras and makes them accessible.

The greatest obstacle is teacher literacy. We are caught in our ways of learning from the past and the styles of teaching from our teaching history. The first video we create will take time and effort after a long and draining day of being on top in the classroom. The first video we upload will take a ‘seismic shift’ in how we think about learning. The first videos that students upload will be the beginning of the future of a new generation of learning.

The solution is to bring education forward through professional development and opportunity to experience the possibilities in video sharing (as well as other new technologies that move the web from an information provider to an information sharing tool). My role, as a teacher librarian and curriculum coordinator (and classroom core teacher) is to model these technologies and support the growth of teachers in experimenting and developing their skills. At a school level, I am encouraged to do this, and all teachers are encouraged to participate, as we share a Technology Without Borders Project through out year. This professional development program combined on site small group self directed pd with multi school grade level sessions. At my school, this has been a gift and a stress, as there never seems to be enough time, personally or in the lab, or enough resources (cameras, computers, connectivity) to act on suggested ideas. My time is limited to assist to less than half time, but that has been the stronger impetus for the staff as they can learn along with me in a cooperative collaborative teaching project. As well, I am learning along with them, so we are all on an upward curve. Video creation and sharing is a totally new concept that will be very interesting to begin as a project with the teachers given our restraints.


Opportunities

The great opportunity that is easily surmounted by students and staff is the accessing of videos online that have been shared by others. TeacherTube is accessible to everyone, and teachers now have the ability to override the YouTube blocks and so, when the technology exists in the classroom, can share video learning with students. As well, there are thousands of streaming videos accessible to student and teacher alike on United Streaming (Discovery Education) and videos specifically geared to curriculum on the Online Reference Centre supported by Alberta Education. Teachers have little time to discover these tools, but they are easily shared and need to be referenced at staff meetings and in mini tutorials to both students and teachers and parents. (Note to self… set these up!) We need to go beyond the worksheet textbook lecture read/write way of teaching and move students to be able to critically view and understand the power of the visual.

A bit more problematic but a fabulous opportunity will be to use classroom videos. The opportunity to create mini lessons on video and post them on sites like YouTube or Teacher Tube of classroom blogs provide opportunity for students to reinforce their learning or to provide a preset prior to the lessons. It is there for review or for initial learning and is created to fit a teaching style and curriculum uniquely yours. Similarly, the many libraires that have used video sharing to post informative and engaging videos to promote the use of their libraries suggest to me that I should try this and pot in on my school library web site.

The greatest opportunity will be when students can create their own videos and share them, and as well reflect and discuss their learning and their classmates learning. With closed classroom blogs, this will certainly be attainable. The students can become engaged in higher level learning skills and be working in an environment that clearly engages them, including skills and strategies that will inevitable be part of their future. When they create for a public eye (even if it is as limited as their classmates, teachers and parents) and when they are using Video that requires them to analyze what they are communicating not just though word but through visual media, they will be more engaged and more inclined to critique their own production. In school, I remember the Shakespeare I acted in, not the Shakespeare I read. What is a more powerful experience if a child also gets to see and reflect and understand themselves more fully through self viewing from a shared video file, can think about how to change, can listen to others and make informed decsions? We are, in our classrooms, creating the broadcasters of tomorrow (Davies and Merchant, 2009) and we need to use the tools to empower them.

The global connections that YouTube has built transcend space and time (Wesch, ) and allow a greater of linking of people. He argues that the web moves us from connecting through roadways and televisions (place to place) to connection of people to people, increasing our connectivity, mediating human relationships. The anthropology of YouTube was a particularly engaging video link that has led me to new, insightful understandings of the importance of our developing students' and personal slills in using video sharing.

When a picture painted a thousand words, the world opened....

Reflections on the Process of Learning about Photo Sharing

Early man painted the hunt on cave walls, history was shared with oral tradition. Our lives were defined by our stories, and if we could talk, we could share. The printing press changed literacy. If we could read, and further write, we could share. The art of the story teller drifted into the realm of artists and thespian; the written word then afforded us more precision in expression. The written word could be shared through books and magazines and tracts; the written word gave exactness and accuracy and hence overshadowed the power of the spoken word or the image of the picture. For centuries, the picture was of minor use in developing a story, particularly on the personal level. The invention of the camera certainly changed some of that. We began to catalog our own stories in albums and in boxes, but it has only been in the past decade that the picture has emerged again as a truly viable form of personal storytelling, thanks to the new ability to share our stories in picture form.

Sharing of photos felt to me like an archive, which is exactly what it is. At last, the world can see the historical and important pictures that define world history through the commons on flickr. At last we have a chance to store images that are our past, to be able to pass the story down through generations without fear of paper decomposition or loss in the mundane events of everyday life. At last we can classify and retrieve in ways we had never thought of previously. This was never an issue for my parents, who were always limited in their photo taking by the cost of development. Our stacks of photos and slides seemed ominous upon their deaths in the early 90’s, but is a tiny anthill compared to the images we now save with digital imagery on our computer hard drives. Sorting this monstrous archive will be a challenge to my survivors if I do not does some work now. Flickr provides an incredible opportunity to store our images off of our hard drives for safekeeping. This I knew before my exploration of the Web 2.0 tool; what I didn’t understand was its ability to categorize, sort, tag and retrieve in a way that builds access and builds community and educational opportunity. Web 2.0 for Schools awakened in me a interest, but it was Richardson iin Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts that provided a stronger practical foundation to take the photo plunge. As usual, the Common Craft Video was a perfect tool to highlight the ease and simplicity of the process. On a purely personal level, I have struggled with organizing prints. I have discarded albums, I have labeled the backs, I have put them in sequential photo boxes, and then the camera went digital. I have stored them in files with dates, with topics and with labels I can no longer understand. I can’t find anything. Despite the photo mess in my life, and the fact that I long ago had a Webshots account, I never connected the Photo Sharing capabilities with my own needs. Uploading a dozen pictures to Flickr this week gave me an insight into how I can now sort, categorize, manage and retrieve pictures. I learn from the reading, however it is the act of creating a Flickr presense that was the most effective teaching tool for me.

Discussion of Photo Sharing in Terms of My Own Personal Learning

I will be able to find my trip to San Francisco from this past summer and compare to summer 1981. I will be able to find collections of pictures of my first born and sort by year. My children will be able access this same group of pictures, be part of an ‘affinity group’ (Davies, Marchant, 2009) and will be able to make comments on them and make reflections on their memories, attach them to the pictures and share these across our family space. This, given the diverse geographical space we occupy across the country, is reason enough to embrace this technology with abandon. We can, with geotags, see our world in ways that were never before possible. In 2009, flickr was a word to me. It was a web site I had never explored. It was another of those things I wanted to do in my future.

The seamlessness of the transfer of a Yahoo product (flickr) to a Google product (Blogger) was very surprising; the portability of information and the breadth and potential of one’s online identity boggles my mind. I can clearly see that there will be infinite ways I will have to continue to learn about pictures and communication and connections with my world community.

Discussion of the Tool in Terms of Teaching and Learning

Twenty eight students, reading levels between grade two and grade eleven. Writing levels between grade one and grade eight. This is a typical Alberta grade six classroom. Three students are coded with special needs, several are ELL (English Language Learners). All of them have lives and stories to tell with such a diversity of skills that would challenge any teacher. There are writing disabilities I know have never been diagnosed. There are children who have physical challenges holding and managing a pencil. All of them have stories and lives to share; many are frustrated with their inabilities to express themselves. How do we tell our stories? How can I look at Marie who has level 2 English but appears brilliant and dedicated to learning, to Avery who talks a blue streak but can’t spell or write a complete sentence, to Katie, who has her hand up all the time but can’t seem to get the words out? Stories began with images and words.

Welcome to the world of Web 2.0. Techniques, skills, tools, abound and can help the learners at all their levels become storytellers. Those who struggle with concrete written structures can use an abundance of pictures to tell their story. Those who can write can enhance and have choices in presentation. Those who are researchers and historians can find primary sources in images to support their thesis. The world has changed and it can and will have a huge impact on those 28 grade 6 children if we can make this world theirs. I was in grade 6 forty six years ago. My world was closed: my classmates, my family, the few streets I travelled on my bicycle, the skating rink on the next street. Television was limited; the world was a safe haven.My 28 grade 6 students are in a world so different from mine that, if I had moved instantaneously from one place to the next, culture shock would have been severe. Jessica is on Facebook every night and sending messages to over 300 friends. She shares pictures and videos, not all of which are appropriate, hourly if not more frequently. Everyone knows her favourite song, her favorite band, her most recent crush. Those who have never her met her in person will know her at the mall… her profile picture changes as regularly as her preference in boys, probably more so. Her web cam records pictures and her iPhone keeps her up-to-date no matter where she is. Selena, on the other hand, has a limited number of social networking friends. Her parents monitor everything she does. She posts pictures and makes some comments. Joshua has no access to a computer. His parent’s camera uses film and he has not got his own computer. He can’t post his Facebook profile at school with an image so he has no online identity. When asked, he shrugs. “That’s for geeks and nerds, I don’t care.” Sadly, Joshua is also one those students who struggles to write and express a story. He is discouraged when the class has access to the computer lab and he has not got the computer literacy skills to flow freely through the assignments. Can’t sign in on some of the sites because he has no email address, and his school does not provide them. He finds it a bit awkward to navigate the web because he has no opportunity to develop these skills. He certainly has no picture of himself to post!

Our world of students is so very diverse in terms of their technical savvy and it is a challenge for me as an educators to meet an increasingly broad gap in skills and competencies. My own competencies are struggling to keep up with the opportunities for education on the web. As a Teacher-Librarians, I have a mandate to provide tools for learning but the world is changing faster than we are and some students like Jessica have technical skills, some students like Joshua are handicapped by their environments, and most are pretty much figuring things out piece meal as we are.

With the advent of EDES 501, I knew I had to take advantage of these new technologies, and designed a cooperative teaching project with a grade 4/5 combined class that explored regions (Alberta and Canada) through photo websites. The students used flickr and other tools that tagged to flickr (GalaxyTag) to find appropriate photographs of their region to reflect the online and print research they had done in the first weeks of January. Using the photo production tool of Photo Story 3, the students put together their stories of regions. Tag Galaxy was my first real opportunity to comprehend the power of Tags, and it was only though the research for this course that I saw the connection and the development that this facility enables. Children were empowered to tell stories using pictures as a powerful story telling device based on extensive research. Not only did they engage in research in an unprecedented way, the compilation of pictures and comments were made using higher level thinking skills and critical observation with an engagement in learning that regions projects had not shown previously. Still, I was not cognizant of the power of the tags within flickr. Because of the video savvy of our young people, (here I am referring to the use of moving images such as on television and Web) and the still - visual savvy of the previous generation (here I am referring to the strategies of looking at the written word and looking at pictures provided through text and other non fluid materials) we as educators need to rethink our own history and roles as literacy educators. Just like the printing press changed literacy, so does the web change literacy not just around written words but around the published image? Perhaps, given technology, we are finally able to move back toward literacies that do not just rely on reading print material. As a professional in a school library, this brings forth incredible challenges. Do our collection acquisition practices reflect the need to teach new literacies? Does our teaching of new literacies reflect the need for digital storytelling and photo sharing of knowledge? Does our technology in our schools even begin to keep up with our need to stay current in our world? How do we convince an increasingly financially stringent system that literacy is a developing and evolutionary process that needs to be supported, first and foremost, by our school system in light of an increasingly divergent level of access at home? Given the stratification of society with technology, are we not increasingly responsible to level the playing field?

“The bottom line is that all these advances in media technologies are making it even easier for young people to spend more and more time with media. It’s more important than ever that researchers, policymakers and parents stay on top of the impact it’s having on their lives” (http://weblogg-ed.com/2010/no-choice/ Richardson)

In developing a project based on photo images, it was inherent on myself and the classroom teacher to provide a format that best met the needs of our project and students. Skills involved in any of the platforms were similar. We compared Photo Story 3, (a free downloadable software that is hosted on your computer), Animoto (a web based application that would be accessible from home and school but required logins for the students) and Windows Media Player, hosted on the school computers. We chose Photo Story 3 as it easily accessed shared photos (flickr) and did not require email addresses, but allowed an ability to create a digital story easily shared among students and a genuine learning experience that focused on skills and content.

I am still a neophyte when it comes to using digital photos online, and sites such as flickr and Webshots. Doors have creaked open. I am struggling to embed comments and geotags and will continue to work on that. I can see opportunities to differentiate learning, to present materials in diverse and interesting ways, to find images and ideas beyond the range of my classroom and school and thereby open an entire new world to my students. I can visualize a world where students are equalized in many ways by their access to photos and to the web. When we overcome the challenges of hardware in classrooms and schools, we will create an equal playing field for students. All of our Maries, our Averys and our Katies will find opportunity to express themselves in ways we have never dreamed possible. Our minds, as educators, will be opened to the minds of these students who have been for too long limited by the power of the written word when the accessible picture was their entrance to their world.

21 Things for 21st Century Teens: What Would You Include?

21 Things for 21st Century Teens: What Would You Include?

The Adventure Begins....

.... at warp speed! I feel lucky to have already been familiar with Facebook as a Social Media platform but I am now tweeting and blogging and working on nings. Who had heard of a Ning before this year?

I'm diving head first into university, after a long hiatus, into this brilliantly engaging world of Web 2.0. I've always been a bit of a techno-lover but somewhere in the past few years I see I've been like an ostrich with my head in the ground. As far as educational uses for the web, I've been naive and dismally narrow as the cyber world has blasted off. What makes this course exciting for me is how practical the learning is, for my own use and directly for the students in my school. The opportunity to grow with other colleagues and to work collaboratively is unique, given that Teacher Librarians exist independently in schools but model and strive for continual professional collaboration.

Two years ago, with the initial help of my son, I set up a web page for another adventure. Paul, bless his heart, thought I should have a blog, but that so confused my mindset that I rejected the idea. Two years later, I wish he'd been more persuasive. Using Dreamweaver and keeping abreast of the web site was a challenge!

This fall, I started a blog for my school library on Wordpress, (as this was the platform Paul had originally led me to). I initially had some difficulties with it; eventually resolved. Then I started another blog on Weebly this week. Wow, I will be familiar with three platforms! As you can see I'm using blogger now.

Weebly feels more like a bridge between website and blog. Unlike Blogger, which does not allow extra pages, and Wordpress, which allows extra pages but no commenting on them, Weebly allows one to have pages or blogs, and as many as you want. You can have a blog as a sub page of a page, several blogs, several different pages. I will continue using both Weebly and Blogger this winter to investigate how I would use them with students. Check out the link to Lynnwood Library and see how I've developed blog pages for my two book clubs and link pages as well as a very easy-to-add contact page. I like Weebly's ability to merge blogs and pages.

I'm still figuring out RSS feeds and Google Friends and how to best use Google Reader. I bought an iPhone (because I thought I could finally justify it to myself!... self gratification sure works!).

Having had a profile on the web for a while, it was VERY interesting to see how my web identity had grown. It is a bit scary how much information is out there. Thank you to a 501 classmate who pointed out the various sites to check your onlne identity. Between the 3 sites, I found out my phone, my address, old deleted pictures... I'm very glad that I have (almost) always been very careful not to post anything very stupid on the web, Facebook, etc. We need to protect our personal identities.

Thanks for listening and reading my first course blog! I'm so looking forward to sharing in the next few months.