A medium for me, a medium for you.

I’ve finally managed to pull myself away from reading all the awesome blogs posted this week. I found it so interested to read the varying opinions on different media and preferred media when it comes to learning and teaching. I found that I was able to connect with a lot of classmates on some or many different ideas.

Photo Credit: Dane Vandeputte Flickr via Compfight cc

Just like Liz and Kelsie I have to admit that I lean more towards text as a medium in which I prefer to learn from. Bates provides strong evidence as to why text has proven to stand the test of time. I liked that Bates commented on text as as essential medium for academic knowledge.  He mentions that text can provide us with more detail and I immediately thought about how we compare the book to the movie. I have yet to see a movie that is better than the book and I would bet that many of you feel the same way. This is because the book can express details relating to emotions, settings or experiences better than a video can.

One reason I like to learn from text is because I have the ability to go at my own pace and read it over as much as I need in order to understand. I prefer to have paper text to read from so that I can highlight, make notes and write questions in the margins as I read. I find that this helps me remember and understand what I am reading more. I must admit that although I prefer text I do not consider myself a reader. I don’t think I have finished a novel for my own reading pleasure since 2012 – I know…that’s insane (and a tad embarrassing). But I guess that shouldn’t come as a surprise after saying I’m not a reader.

Photo Credit: matsuyuki Flickr via Compfight cc

In terms of audio I can see the plus to creating it and using it, especially for students who may have difficulty reading text. Like Jess mentioned in her blog, I can see how it could be useful in learning a language so that you can understand the proper pronunciation of the text, however this would have to be combined with text which might make it difficult for some to manage. I like that you can pause and rewind audio and the fact that it can be taken along with you to listen to with your phone or in your car. I personally can’t seem to jump on board with the podcast learning/listening. I find that it is too difficult for me to focus on audio only which brings me to my next topic, video.

I believe that videos are a great tool for learning, especially when learning certain skills. For example, if you wanted to learn how to work a power tool, a video might prove to be a lot more helpful than a manual. In terms of creating videos it does take time and you need to have the right tools in order to create a quality video that will get the content delivered in an appropriate way. I use a flip class model for my math class and provide video lessons for the students to watch as homework. I like that students can pause and rewind as well as watch the video as many times as they want. I feel like this is beneficial to them especially when it comes time for a final exam and they are expected to recall information from the first chapter. With a video lesson they are able to go back and watch the video to help refresh their memory.

As with everything else the medium we choose will vary depending on the content we are trying to deliver. If the content is more skill based, perhaps a video showing the skill can be used. For language courses maybe audio is the best. Regardless of the medium used, I know that for me I have to be in the right frame of mind in order to learn. I would imagine that this is the same for our students. I don’t know if the medium will make a different if students have other barriers such as lack of sleep, hunger or emotional factors getting in the way. We need to be cognizant of all of these barriers when choosing the appropriate medium and be willing to adapt and be flexible for our students. The better we understand our students and how they learn, the better we are able to choose a medium that is best suited for their learning needs.

Perhaps the best thing for the classroom is to have multiple media available in order to give students a choice. I don’t often provide a lot of choice but when I do it’s usually text and video. Do you offer media choices? How do you do it?

Just do ink

App icon from the app store

I took the challenge of finding a new tool to work with this week and I choose to work with DoInk App. Although I knew there were green screen apps available, I didn’t know specific names for any apps. Thanks to Rochelle I was introduced to DoInk. It is available in the app store and can be purchased for $3.99 which I feel is a fair price for what you get. I downloaded the app on my iPhone 6 and feel as though it might have been nicer to work with on an iPad just because the screen is a little bigger to work with. The DoInk website has a lot of

Our green screen made from wrapping paper

I decided to jump right in before reading a lot about using the app or viewing the tutorials on the site. Before I could do anything I needed to create a green screen. There are many ways you can make a green screen and most are pretty affordable. I purchased a plastic table cloth from the dollar store to use but it didn’t work out the way I had hoped. The green wasn’t dark enough so our wall color was showing through enough that the app was picking up our grey/blue color. When it picked up the paint color the image that I selected for our green screen background would be very light and almost fuzzy. I doubled up the table cloth but it still didn’t do the trick. On a second trip to the dollar store I bought some bright green wrapping paper. This worked awesome! My only complaint would be the faint green outline that appears around the objects or person in front of the screen. But I suppose that’s what you get for a $3.99 app.

In terms of using the app I would say it is pretty user-friendly. I was able to figure out how to use it without watching the tutorials or reading the user guide that they take you through when you start up the app. I probably could have saved myself some time had I actually read or watched the app, but I’m all about experiential learning. After spending some time exploring their site I noticed all of the tutorials they have as well as some great tips that could be used for making your videos using the green screen.

To create the video I found an image on a creative commons search and took a screen shot of it so it was on my phone. I edited the photo so that it filled the screen and uploaded that to DoInk to use it as the background. My son used some of his Star Wars toys to play and make a mini movie scene. I imported the video into iMovie and added the audio as well as the rolling font. You can add text and draw on the video using DoInk but I wanted to add the audio and credits from iMovie.

From a teaching perspective, I don’t know that I would use this app a whole lot. It would be possible to create some fun video lessons, but I don’t see it as being very practical because it takes time to make and I’m not sure how good it would be at getting content or skills across to the students. I see this as being used for student projects. I think it would be a really fun way for students to present information, maybe create a newscast or make a trip around the world describing the different images being shown while dressed in character. Having students create videos of their own would fall into the constructivist and connectivist learning theories according to Bates. Bates also provides some criteria to consider when selecting videos to use:

• it is short and to the point;
• it is relevant to what you want to teach;
• it demonstrates clearly a particular topic or subject and links it to what the student is intended to learn;
• the example is well produced (clear camera work, good presenter, clear audio);
• it provides something that you could not do easily yourself;
• it is freely available for non-commercial use.

If you are making your own video lesson you would want to keep these tips in mind. Short and to the point is sometimes impossible depending on the skill or topic you are trying to teach. If you cannot keep it short and to the point it might be helpful to break up the video with some humor or integrated videos/images.

Have you ever created a video lesson? How did it go? What did your students think about it? And how did you create it? I’d love to hear from you.