I'll admit, having my future students use video cameras hasn't really crossed my mind. I think that for using technology in the classroom, I tend to want to stay with things like blogs, wikis, podcasts, etc. Ya know, things that are easily accessible and most of the time convenient when the student has time for it. From practicing some with the Microsoft Movie Maker to do editing, I see that actually editing a movie and putting clips together is not as hard as it seems if you have to right tools. However, the actual process of getting and using the video cameras would be more complicated. One problem would definitely be if the school is not adequately stocked. Maybe they only have one or two cameras for the whole school to use or even worse not have any. Unless the students happen to have their own personal cameras, getting enough cameras could be costly and time consuming. If you wanted to just use the small number of available cameras, you would have to allow the students more time to complete the project. Another problem would be that the students checking out the cameras would have to work around the lab/school's schedule of when the cameras are available, and if they are doing an interview or something involving the participation of another person, they will also have to work around that person's schedule.
In spite of these disadvantages, I can see how the video cameras could possibly be useful when used in a language classroom. The most obvious ways I see are to expand cultural understandings. The following are some possible video camera activity ideas:
1) Interview with a native speaker (about a cultural topic or even to analyze grammatical points)
2) Documentation of a local cultural event
3) Interview of other language learners to get their view of a topic or event
4)Pretend fashion show with narration in the target language
5)Pretend news update given in target language
6)Pretend travel commercial advertising a country or place of the target language
I think any one of these ideas could be helpful in FLA, especially if they edit the movies because it gives them a feeling of self-ownership. I do think that it should be maybe a semester or month long process to allow enough time for the students to do a good job and be able to work around all scheduling kinks. I would definitely say, I think this is for upper level learners maybe middle school and up.
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3 comments:
I really like your ideas of what to do with video in the classroom. I particularly think the fashion show idea would go over well with high schoolers -- they could narrate a segment like entertainment news, who's wearing what on the red carpet, etc.
I agree with you that it seems like it would be hard to incorporate video into a classroom because the school might not have the right resources for you to successfully use this type of project. You could set aside class time to create the projects, but then you have the dilemma of what the other students should do while one group is recording. I think it would take a carefully planned activity to work well in a school with limited resources.
Good reflections and ideas! 10/10
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