Another professional development opportunity. Another time to gain knowledge. But this has not been just another week. At Teach the Teachers Collaborative from July 20-25, Los Angeles Unified School District teachers spent time synthesizing delivery of science content through the use of podcast episode development.
It all began with a keynote presentation by Dan Schmit of Intelligenic. You can view his presentation here, which was captured through Ustream.tv (thank you Youssef Elias for setting up the recording).
2008 TTTC Podcasts (link to a sampling of participant podcast recordings)
In conclusion, the week served as an example of what can be achieved when educators not only learn the content but share the content among their colleagues and the rest of the world.
We are approaching mid-point in our Teach the Teachers Collaborative program for Los Angeles Unified School District science teachers. So far, banter has been going back and forth regarding the end-of-the-week video montage we should present. Currently, we are having participants contribute to a special web-driven slide show on Cellblock.
Some “pros” of using this are that (1) everyone can contribute freely to the slide show without having to track down a designated person, (2) images can be viewed in the presentation immediately after they are sent as attachments from e-mail, and (3) a cellular phone becomes an acceptable device for contributing. I was hearing about some “cons” today from several sources, though: (1) pictures uploaded cannot be downloaded as individual image files, (2) media is not automatically arranged in chronological order but is instead listed in order of Cellblock receiving the e-mail attachments, and (3) music is not integrated into the slide show.
We will see what happens on Friday, but right now we are settling for having the slide show play as participants walk into the culminating meeting with music created in GarageBand playing in the background (just as is without trying to make it a large production).
What do you think? Would you just let it play as is, or would you create that montage using a video-editor such as iMovie or a photo-show such as Photo Story 3?
Today was the start of several weeks at Thacher School in Ojai, California for a residential professional development program for teachers called Teach the Teachers Collaborative. As an instructor for many iterations of this program since before 2000, I have seen my share of compilation montages of each week, and have been the sole editor of a few myself. If you have been tasked with creating such a end-of-the-program presentation, then you know how much time and effort goes into developing a quality product that provides great impact and leaves participants feeling nostalgic about their learning journey.
With great relief that I wouldn’t have to create another of these presentations, I find comfort knowing that a colleague (John Lenhardt) this week introduced everyone, including the participants, toward being contributors to an alternative media capture of the week. We are all using Cellblock to contribute collaboratively to the media collection
This particular set of images is a continual process, allowing everyone to take control of the content to be included. Yes, there are other photosharing sites, including social networks such as CUE Community where every person can upload photos for all to look at.
But what makes Cellblock different is that participants can contribute images and video by cell phone Of course, this can also be done by e-mail via a computer. With a 20MB limit per e-mail submission, the program won’t take in GB-sized videos, but videos from a digital still camera are pefect to e-mail.
Check back here again to see what shows up throughout the week. I myself cannot wait for the final product to materialize.
