Saturday, April 24, 2010

Movies Movies Movies

This past week, we have been making 30 second commercials in class. Who knew that it would take so long to make 30 seconds look good? I was put in charge of editing, which I have some limited knowledge of thanks to my brother Austin and his amazing stop motion skills. We had to make a commercial about a product, and in this case, my group used Jet Puff Marshmallow Fluff. This particular can was super old and had developed a yellow puddle of jelly type substance at the bottom because of its many years of unuse.
Making videos is super fun, and a challenge, but can be a really good way for students to find a new medium to explore education. For instance, my brother Austin, does a lot of videos for school projects because that is how he likes to express himself, and they are super amazing, and something that really interests him. I think bringing different mediums into the classroom is a good idea, and can really help students find fun and different ways to express what they have learned.

I also feel like it would be cool to have a video at the beginning of some units to get the kids interested in what they are going to learn. I feel like this would be extremely helpful in areas such as language arts and social studies. Everybody likes to watch videos, and I think that it is a good way for students to collaborate.

If your school has the resources, it would be fun to have the students get into groups and make video projects for different units. Once again, this would get them working in a team in a different type of medium and it would be a great way to have fun.

I like videos, even though it takes forever to make one, in the end its all worth it.

2 comments:

  1. Video production is a great way to teach your students about team work. It really does require collaboration and can involve several students in important roles.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Amber, I like your idea of grouping up the students to make video projects for different subjects. Hopefully your school will have the funds to provide cameras for each group. I think you are right about video being very useful for Language Arts and Social Studies, but I think it would also be exciting and helpful (if used in the right way) to teach subjects such as math and science, where you don't always think to use video.

    ReplyDelete