After much delay I have finally completed the final multi-media presentation. This movie posted here is not the same format as other students in EDACE 675. I had proposed back in September to our professor, Dr. K, an alternative project, one I hoped that would still meet the requirements for the final project but at the same time accomplish another goal I had been working on.
In the summer of 2001, I had the opportunity to participate in the last Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute summer study program. It was a general introduction to a variety of different development challenges facing India at the turn of the century. It was divided up into different sectors (Uttarakhand, Kanpur, and Calcutta) each with a different focus on either urban or rural development. At each place, a different academic institution would host the students providing facilities, lecturers and additional resources. Learning occurred in both a classroom environment and in each field-site visit. The great advantage of the Shastri program was it took students out of the class and afforded them the opportunity to see the development first-hand in the actual place it was happening.
The drawbacks of this program were its over use of the lecture instructional methodology and reliance on static assessment tools to evaluate student learning. Lectures occurred both in the class and at the various field-sites. While providing the necessary information, additional learning happened either when students collaborated together on some of the group presentations or the rare instances of independent studies. This is not to say that learning did not occur, only that it did not necessarily match the dynamic environment we were in.
The assessment was based on group presentations, reflective journals, final paper, and individual presentations. While these are not necessarily poor choices to measure student performance but they do not match the current potential of new learning methodology or take advantage of today's available technology, particularly social media. This is the core of this week's blog and the purpose of the attached video. The Shastri program was a very valuable introduction to the real challenges of international development.
This video was created as a proposal to restart this program by including new technologies that will reach a new generation of learners. Social media technology will bring greater visibility to the learning that is occurring and also allow students to capture the learning, collaborate on learning projects in a digital environment, reassess the learning at a later date (after additional experiences), and share this learning with others outside the program (like a Blog). By enabling other academics or students to comment on the various student projects, the students can be challenged on their points, thus fostering more reflective learning that will permit development of critical thinking.
Below is the video for this proposal.
Outline for Multi-media process
Plan
1. First step was to plan a project. Instead of interview began by developing concept for revamp of Shastri Summer Program. Sought permission of Dr. K.
2. Two-fold planning process developed. First was to select specific technologies to propose using on summer program. Began comparing old curriculum with technologies listed in book The professor's guide to taming technologies.
3. Other part of planning process involved deciding on what clips and other parts of Shastri digital video to use.
4. An outline for a script was then created.
5. Planning matrix to compare old learning activities with learning activities created by new technology:
Produce
1. Located old digital footage stored on external hard-drive. Switched files over to internal hard-drive of Mac OS equipped laptop. Then necessary to utilize program called Handbrake to convert video files to MPEG 4 format. Then possible to copy to video editing program.
2. Used iMovie on Mac OS equipped computer to select desired clips, order and edit as required.
3. Music and audio overlays were recorded and then edited as required. Audio recording had to be fitted to five minute video as required by EDACE 675 course syllabus. Final script was never produced, instead used conceptual topic outline to clarify points.
4. Made narration according to previously mentioned audio outline and matched to selected clips.
5. Drafted structure for blog to use as means of presentation.
Publish
1. Based on conceptualized presentation plan, blog was selected as means to display video.
2. Had to resize video in order to upload to blog page.
3. Next day presented and wrote multi-media outline.
References
King, K.P. and Cox, T.D. (2011). The professor's guide to taming technology. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing.
This book was used as reference for affects of new technology. It provides details on the specific benefits of blogs and wikis, as discussed in the video.
Mayer, R.E. (2003). Multi-media learning. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
This book was specifically cited (p. 53) for the three processes of active learning. It also provided help with categorizing and comparing various types of eLearning.
