Week 10 Discussion Post

Option #3 Personal Perspective

My identity has been completely transformed by new media.  As an undergraduate student, I took a class titled "Education and Computers".  The task of the entire course was to start a website and manage it.  Without knowing it, the class completely changed my life. Without that class, I would not have been able to find my passion and hopefully my career.  I started a brand about five years ago that is based solely off of new media, mainly social media and blogging.  Since I started it, my skills have only grown to now include video editing and production.  Clearly, I am a big fan of new media and its capabilities especially in the classroom.

Integrating multimedia programs into the classroom seems like a logical step in today's digital world. Almost every student with access to a computer knows how to use it.  Nothing will ever replace exams and essays in school, however, multimedia allows teachers to add to the learning process.  Nothing is being taken away, but instead teachers can add to the learning process.  Being "literate" in 2017 means more than just being able to read and write printed text.  Why can't a student-produced film convey the same meaning as a written essay?  "It may be the case that the power of digital stories for creators and viewers has to do with a happy melding of old and new genres and media," (Hull and Nelson, 252).  Multimedia allows students to express their thoughts in new ways.  In their findings, Hull and Nelson talk about how simply adding music "adds an important emotional element to digital stories," (253).  Something as simple as background music can elevate a student's project and that should be what all teachers strive for.  Being open to the changes going on in technology can make the difference for students and how they learn.

Blogs and websites can be a great project for students to have to create and maintain.  As seen in Halverson's research study, "Film as Identity Exploration- A Multimodal Analysis of Youth-Produced Films", organization are encouraging young people to document their own life story using multimedia.  "In the case of documentary filmmaking, stories often gain credibility

through their use of original, unplanned footage," (Halverson, 2372).  Journalism and news reporting has taken a huge hit in terms of credibility since the past presidential election.  Teaching adolescents to create original content from their perspective is a great way to fight against the credibility issue.  

Work Cited

Halverson, Erica. "Film as Identity Exploration: A Multimodal Analysis of Youth-Produced Films."      Teachers College Record 112.9 (2010): 2352-378. Web.

Hull, Glynda A., and Mark E. Nelson. "Locating the Semiotic Power of Multimodality." Written Communication 22.2 (2005): 224-61. Web.

Blog Post #7

When I first arrived on the "Five-Minute Film Festival: Copyright and Fair Use for Educators, I was unsure where to click first.  There was so many resources listed which was great to see.  Reading over some of the video descriptions, it was great to see that there were entertaining videos to help students understand copyright.  The videos appear to start with a broad understanding of copyright and have others that are more detailed and informative which shows that it is appropriate for a variety of ages. I think the site itself could be more visually appealing.  The site is quite simple and could maybe include thumbnails from the videos or some type of visual to accompany the text.

I chose to critique the text resource "Understanding Copyright, Fair Use, and Creative Commons, as they apply to Education".  I was always interested how copyright affects teachers so the title of this article immediately caught my attention.  One immediate problem with this resource is that one of the links provided to better explain "Copyright Fair Use in Education" is broken.  The author acknowledges this and provides alternative links, however, it would seem easier to read if the author just removed the link in its entirety.

The article also provides a link to "Creative Commons" which is a great resource to find different types of copyrighted media that can be licensed and allows users to upload their own content.   Users can license original content, donate original content, or donate to the organization.  The EmergingEdTech site does include a brief description of the different types of licenses that one can acquire.  The article also mentions that Creative Commons also allows for people to share music licensed under Creative Commons.

I chose to critique the video resource "Understanding 'Fair Use' in a Digital World". Automatically, this is a great video for middle school students as it shows a middle school teacher explaining to her class what fair use is.  It is a great resource for teachers to follow as a model for how to teach fair use and copyright.  She shares examples that can be used for students to distinguish what applies to fair use. In addition, she explains how to advance their understanding once they have a basic knowledge of fair use and copyright.

It is great to know that these resources do exist because it is a very common misconception that copyright does not apply to educators.  Teachers can benefit from a better understanding of copyright in the classroom because it is such a complicated yet important issue.  The lines seem to blur so much with the internet as everything can be found on it.  To already understand copyright and fair use, it puts students that much further ahead.   Learning about copyright can help students in the future working on different projects.

MMP Update #1

Hi everyone! Here is my MMP Update 1 screencast! I definitely have a lot of work left, but I feel good seeing the project starting to come together.