This semester my Technology class had the opportunity to work with the California Emergency Management Agency's (CalEMA) Crisis Communications and Public Affairs Department to create emergency preparedness videos. We were lucky to have their media specialist, Brad Alexander, come out and do a presentation on the importance of emergency preparedness and what CalEMA does in emergencies. Brad also worked with my students on how to shoot their videos with their audience in mind and to focus their ideas and their shots. He worked with each group to fine tune their ideas and encouraged them to be creative in their approach. His invaluable mentoring was inspiring and the students were so excited to get started on making their preparedness videos knowing their finished product would be posted on the CalEMA website for the public to view. The students self-selected their groups and emergency preparedness ideas: earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, or fires. The students knew their audience was all Californians of any age and their goal was to teach the importance of being prepared for an emergency.
As the students began their planning, I asked NCS freshmen,
Alex Greenlee, to come in to work with my students on planning their shots. My
students were familiar with Alex’s brilliant filmmaking already and were so
excited to have his help. Alex patiently worked with each group and helped them
fine tune their ideas and gave them great advice on how to achieve their goals
through effective shots. At any other school this type of mentoring would be
impossible, but Alex’s teachers were happy to allow him out of class to mentor
my students. His assistance was beneficial to my students but also to him. He
is a great teacher and gave my students advice that I could not give.
With the pre-planning done, the scriptwriting began. The
students all automatically used Google Docs to collaborate on their
“screenplay” for their video. They carefully planned out their shots and what
they would say as well as their voiceovers. They worked on this outside of
class as well so they could begin filming. Most filming was done outside of
class after school and on the weekends and the students all used their own
devices. Editing was all done on our classroom computers. Many students came in
before school and at lunch to record their voiceovers for their movies. Once
the videos were done and uploaded to youtube.com, all classes viewed them and
scored them on a Google form. After viewing them, a few groups re-did some of
their scenes to make them more audible. We submitted our videos to Brad at
CalEMA for their review.
This past week during my 3rd period class I
received a tweet from CalEMA about one of the videos:
This tweet was about a fire preparedness video that two of
my 3rd period students had made. These two students happened to be
very quiet and shy and so I quietly went over with the tweet open on my phone
and shared it with each of them. Their smiles were ear to ear and they were
glowing! These two had gone to the trouble of re-working their audio after
viewing their video in class and realized it needed to be clearer. They never
complained or asked for extra time or help. So when they saw that their video was
being tweeted about, they knew their hard work had paid off. Thousands of
people will see their video because of this tweet! I was thrilled for them
since I knew their creative fire preparedness
movie would help everyone.
As a teacher, I always enjoy watching my students create engaging videos whatever the educational content. This year, the part that motivated my students even more was having an authentic audience to publish their videos to. Our emergency preparedness video project was a good example of real world learning, mentoring, collaboration, problem solving and creating media for a wider audience. Thanks to everyone involved, it was a huge success! You can view the videos here:
As a teacher, I always enjoy watching my students create engaging videos whatever the educational content. This year, the part that motivated my students even more was having an authentic audience to publish their videos to. Our emergency preparedness video project was a good example of real world learning, mentoring, collaboration, problem solving and creating media for a wider audience. Thanks to everyone involved, it was a huge success! You can view the videos here:
Enjoy and always be prepared!
Authentic Audience=Authentic motivation. Love this!
ReplyDelete