Sylvia Martinez is one of the ground breakers out there. I’ve given her feed to a couple of you now and I think I may have to add her to the main line up because she’s always posting good stuff like this:
Generation YES Blog » Blog Archive » Helping students tell different kinds of stories via video
A while back I did a post about having students create “how to” videos for your school using the Common Craft model of simple illustrations with an informative voiceover. This is a very common GenYES student project, with students creating videos about how to use the technology found in their own school.
Go read the whole thing and note the comment on the bottom from Lee LeFever. Lee is the guy who makes the Common Craft videos. And if you’re not familiar with Common Craft, they have some of the very best explanations of complicated ideas ever!
This post is significant to our discussions in that it’s an example of what happens when we let learning out of the classroom. Sylvia is sharing a tool and explaining how she uses it in her practice. The conversation includes the guy who “owns the tool” — not a good choice of words but it’s an awkward concept to try to explain. It now includes all of you who are reading this post along with all the people who also subscribe to Gen Yes or who saw her tweet on twitter a few minutes ago. And now, because I’ve pinged her with this post (it happened automatically when I referenced the blog post), she’s able to see who’s talking about her and what we’re saying. (Hi, Sylvia!)
This is an example of the kind of resource I want to point to as an example of “learning won’t wait.”
September 6th, 2008 at 3:13 am
Hi all,
I got this link in my reader feed – because I defined a feed that gives me any blog or website that links to mine. Egotistical or just watchful? You decide…
Getting a comment from Lee LeFever is very cool. The world is linked in mysterious ways. I got a comment a while back from Sugata Mitra on a post I wrote about his groundbreaking research. Very, very cool stuff on the concept of “Minimally Invasive Education”
http://blog.genyes.com/index.php/2007/05/24/hole-in-the-wall-can-kids-learn-computer-literacy-by-themselves/
September 7th, 2008 at 12:33 am
I went to Sylvia’s article and watch the video. WOW, this is a great idea to help put concepts into a form that makes them easier for students to understand. I really like the video so I decided to go to common craft to check out some of their other videos. I also watch the videos on social media and Wikis in plain English. Both of these videos like the first are so easy to understand and the made strong connections to real world things that can be related to. I think that there is a lot of useful information on the common craft site. Here is the link: http://www.commoncraft.com/ I added it and Sylvia’s to my feeds. I think I will greatly enjoy seeing what comes up on these sites.
September 7th, 2008 at 10:09 am
Anything that gets students involved in thinking outside of the classroom box that they are placed in is an awesome idea. The fact that the students created the video and edited it is incredible. I was part of the newsroom team in high school and we had to do a lot pf editing before we would broadcast anything. It could get very interesting –
. I am going to check out common craft – will keep you updated on my findings!
September 9th, 2008 at 5:24 pm
This was very easy to understand! As teachers, we need to learn about ways that will help our students understand things easier. This video was an awesome example. I will definitely be looking at things on common craft.