Here's my proposal, in case you were dying to see it again.
I have to admit, this was fun to put together. As you can see, I had to find ways to entertain myself during all of the work a video proposal requires, but I am interested in doing more stuff like this in the future--hopefully with a more robust program than Windows Movie Maker. I've been told that iMovie is much, much better, but I lack the money and elite status to become a Mac owner.
The construction of a video proposal--again, something I had never done before--also got me thinking about multi-modality in my own classroom. I would love to make my students do something like this, but they groan at even the most rudimentary forms of multi modality: "Do we HAVE TO use pictures in our papers?" Not to mention the whole computer literacy problem I've been seeing in my students since I started teaching; they already have contempt for me for making them use Vista, so if I told them they had to learn an entire program and produce something with said program, they would circle me, beat me to death with their laptops, and carry my head around like a trophy.
One of my office mates is having similar problems, which he summed it up with a simple quote: "I don't want to waste half my time doing tech support." I've found similar problems with wasting time on troubleshooting with both Vista and even simple things like saving and sending files. Sometimes, I feel like the approach to my next class should be, "Fuck it, everything's gonna be on paper." I don't know anyone who uses Vista to the extent I do, and they don't seem to have any problems getting by. Hell, my professors barely use it; in one of my classes, our prof. wanted all of us to be able to read each other's papers, so she engineered a complicated e-mail scheme involving file attachments and the "reply to all" option. People don't even want to use Vista for the one thing it's good for.
It may seem like I have a bone to pick with Vista--and I do--but this all falls back on the resistance to technology I'm seeing in the classroom. I'm thinking that, for my classes' next big assignment, I'm going to force multi-modality on them, instead of just making it optional. I've been a little wary about doing something like that, but maybe it's time to completely disregard the future and try something new. All of my students have been writing about and responding to multi-modal things throughout the entire semester (video games, tv shows, blogs), so I think it's a bit hypocritical of me to demand only text from them.
I guess, for now, I'm still trying to figure out all of this stuff, but I think the creation of this proposal really gave me a taste for multi-modal projects. As far as the methodology goes, I'm still a little unsure, as my single rhet/comp class didn't give me a foundation I remember particularly well. But, I plan on doing some research and returning to this blog with some ideas. Wish me luck.
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2 comments:
Just ditch vista and make your own course website :-) It will save you heart ache. I am surprised that you are having such resistance with your students and technology. My students will make a movie as part of their last project, and are actually looking forward to it - I really think it is more of just having to press play during a presentation instead of speaking, but hey whatever gets them excited. Next week we will have 1 class devoted to "this is how you work windows movie maker" and after that it is up to them to figure out how to do things -- ask classmates, roommates, student multimedia studio ect. I also do cool technology of the week, so from the very beginning of the semester they are figuring out how to use different sites (blogger, piknik, bubbl.us, ect) and those skills help them when we get into bigger technology programs. It is something to think about at least. At the very beginning I had to teach them how to send email, add attachments ect, so I guess I don't think too much about taking the last 5-10 mins of class teaching them something technology based. I was surprised I had to show a couple how to use powerpoint this past week -- and I hope you do not get beat with laptops. That would be sad. And I hope I don't get students that would beat me with laptops, then I am in big trouble.
(and imovie is fantastic)
I'm with Nikki here...I have made my students use facebook for a project, am making them make cd's in a few weeks, and tomorrow I am videoing them reading poems for "Poetry-Day-Class." Only a few have had any problems with any of the "technology" I have thrown at them so far. Next semester, I might make them make their own videos, I am not sure. But it's certainly my new favorite thing in the world...
E.
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