To add a meaningful documenting learning purpose to conducting Mystery Skype calls, the purposeful documentation requires strategically planning the learning focuses and goals involved, which commonly includes communication skills being practiced, as well as the sophistication of geography or mathematical terminology being applied authentically. For example, in Mr. Frederick’s class, the dialogue conveyed above was near the beginning of the school year. Later in the year, his students will not be using cloze-reading sentences to convey their cumulative data responses. They will also grow in their independent command of the geography and mathematical language needed during the Skype calls. One of Mr. Frederick’s year-long patterns and trends documenting opportunities involves having his students review the series of archived interview calls to unpack their improvement-over-time skills related to oral communication and use of precise academic vocabulary. Each student will share the unpacked evidence of their learning with his or her parents or caregivers during the end-of-the-school-year student-led progress conference time.
Traditional video interviews focused solely on the person or persons being interviewed also offer learners with meaningful opportunities. This is especially true when connected to an authentic purpose, such as adding human-interest stories to a local history organization or museum, or passion-based beliefs and values to a local group or agency website. Likewise, capturing family stories from grandparents, aunts, and uncles; or eye-witness accounts of historical events before they are incapable of sharing or have passed on is invaluable to capturing meaningful information pertaining to the heartbeats of nuclear and extended families or the local community.
Given the rate of exponential change in human lives and behaviors, it is not frivolity, it is a necessity, to capture life today and past memories where learners can meaningfully engage with interviewees. While unpacking the interview documentation, thoughtfully reflecting on what was particularly moving or most important is critical. Create informational and/or emotional video artifacts that can be shared and strategically amplified serve as anchors of time for generations to come both locally and globally.
Video Documentaries.
Another opportunity that involves the recording interviews is video documentaries. One of the documenting team members “becomes” the person being interviewed. For example, the interview may involve a university professor who has made a scientific breakthrough; a world-famous athlete sharing insights on a given topic; famous archeologists who have made a new discovery; biographers who researched a current or past famous person; or the concerns of a past or current politician.
Whether set in the past, present, or future, the video documentary could be simple with introduction and exit video clips; objective narration (narrator can be visually seen by viewers or only heard via voice-over); and cut-aways to the interview clips at appropriate times. To create a more complex product, as seen in many television or film documentaries, extend the simple version to include additional strategic multimedia, such as interview clips from others who provide different perspectives and context; photographs; panoramic views of landscapes or cityscapes; close-ups of man-made or natural objects; and background music to aid in conveying the documentary’s overall tone or mood. This involves learners needing to capture and unpack multiple forms of media that visibly and audibly convey the learning focuses and goals that will be evident in the individual artifacts, as well as the final synthesized video documentary artifact.
And last, but not humorously least, consider having older learners who understand the concept of parody and its use in various forms of media create a video documentary parody from an historical living museum perspective, similar to one created by The Onion News Network. (Note: While some of the videos on this website are appropriate for younger ages, there is a disclaimer on the site that states: The Onion is not intended for readers under 18 years of age.) Scan QR Code 9.4 to experience a student-friendly blast-from-the-past moment that some readers may remember personally experiencing, given it was not that long ago when Blockbuster was the place to go to access movies.
Several video/movie-making platforms and tools include: iMovie, Movie Maker, 1 Second Everyday, Vine, Periscope, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Vimeo, and Snapchat.
Screencasting.
Screencasts record and produce a video of what is transpiring on a digital screen. A screencast’s audio can consist of the audio playing on the screen while recording or as a voice-over through the device’s microphone.
Screencasting is a beneficial form of documenting in the during-documentation phase, but also plays a powerful unpacking role in the post-documentation phase. Whether the screencast is focused on a captured action or an imported screenshot image or photograph, unpacking begins through reflecting and analyzing what is on the screen while recording the screencast. When the learner conveys the thinking behind what is visible via annotexting and/or voice-over, the screencast artifact informs the learner if he or she is moving toward, has met, or exceeds the learning focuses or goals.
For example, Mrs. Yegelwel, a kindergarten teacher, set up several number set-comparison scenarios where the learning focus was on differentiating mathematically among three set comparisons: fewer, more, and equal to. She took photographs of her students working on solving the different scenarios via triad teams. She then sent each team’s set of photographs to an iPad and saved the photographs in a classroom Photo Album.
QR Code 9.4 Scan this QR code to view the humorous parody on historical living museums: Historic ‘Blockbuster’ Store Offers Glimpse of How Movies Were Rented in The Past.
http://langwitches.me/blockbuster
To promotes student choice, each student looked at the captured images and selected the scenario he or she wanted to unpack for audience viewers. Mrs. Yegelwel and a classroom volunteer assisted her students when necessary in using a screencasting tool, Explain Everything, to import the selected image. The student recorded his or her voice explaining what the photograph mathematically represented concerning the two visible sets. While recording, he or she added drawing features (e.g., dots) appropriately to visually support his or her reasoning. Some students were able to pause and draw, which demonstrated media fluency as well, which Mrs. Yegelwel made digital anecdote of on her iPad.
Each student’s’ project was saved in the Explain Everything app and then sent to Mrs. Yegelwel’s email. She then uploaded the screencast videos to the classroom’s Vimeo account and embedded the appropriate video in each student’s blogfolio. When she published each blog post, she included three categories: Kindergarten, Math, and Oral Language. By publishing her students’ screencast videos to their public blogfolios, she added an amplification degree in two ways:
By the act of publishing online posts, Mrs. Yegelwel is able to link her students’ work in tweets. By using hashtags, she not only connected to her professional learning network, but also invited anyone in the Twittersphere interested in one or more of the hashtag topics to visit her students’ learning.
Mrs. Yegelwel will continue to archive video and other types of documentation artifacts in the blogfolios throughout the year using one or more of the same terms to tag and categorize appropriate artifacts to an amplification of learning evidence over time. By strategically using tags and categories, she will be able to locate and retrieve collective evidence that conveys a student’s mathematical knowledge and understanding growth. Archiving evidence of learning that extends beyond simply displaying learning allows her students, their families, and herself to gain deeper insights into their cognition and metacognition learning processes by reflecting and analyzing similar-topic artifacts. This is a major reason why blogging documentation is so beneficial to classrooms and professional environments.
Metacognition Mission.
Being aware of one’s personal thought process and having the ability to articulate those thoughts to oneself and to others is not a natural skill for many. Metacognition involves thinking deeply and introspectively, wh
ich takes time to develop as a self-directed learner. Creating metacognitive videos can help learners talk through their thinking, as it aids a learner to hear his or her own thinking while speaking, as well as when unpacking captured documentation.
Laurel Janewicz, the middle-school mathematics teacher featured previously, is passionately piloting metacognitive thinking and reflection in her sixth-grade classes. She starts out by laying a foundation of the purposes and procedures at the onset of the school year, and then coaches her students in metacognitive strategies applied to themselves as mathematicians throughout the academic year. As the year progresses, her students create short videos that become a personalized video series titled Why, How, and What Next? that captures each student’s metacognitive reflections about various math topics the class focuses on throughout the year.
QR Code 9.5 Scan this QR code to read a metacognitive-focused blog post Kindergarten using Explain Everything app to explain Math Scenarios.
http://langwitches.me/math-scissors
Using a screencasting tool to produce their videos, each student records himself or herself as voice-over and/or annotexting to explain his or her process, thinking, and reasoning for solving a given mathematical problem or situation, which is the first degree of amplification: sharing with oneself.
A second amplification degree takes place during this unpacking process. The initial screencast gets the mental model out of the learner’s head and makes it visible to himself or herself via the voice-over or annotexted video. When the student shares the visible/audible screencast artifact with a peer, the next amplification degree begins: sharing face-to-face. The peer partner now annotexts the partner’s video with his or her observations, noting where and when a math strategy or strategies are being or not being used, which adds an additional layer of thinking to the original artifact.
Technically, the sharing degree of amplification increases the minute the video was viewed by another person, whether a peer, Laurel, or a mathematician guest who visits the classroom to engage with them and their metacognitive videos. The benefit to having her students sharing face-to-face with a peer who adds observations and feedback is that the evidence of the meeting is preserved within the screencasting artifact. The peer’s shared thoughts would be lost if the two students only had an oral discussion about how the one student solved the math problem or situation.
To round out the school year, Laurel uses five questions as reflective prompts that have evolved over time by getting feedback from her students on their effectiveness in further aiding them in developing their metacognitive thinking. (Note: While Laurel uses these prompts toward the end of her year-long documenting opportunity, the questions could be used periodically throughout the school year.)
What does metacognition, thinking about your thinking, mean to you and how has it helped you in math?
To me, metacognition means . . . And it helps me in math . . .
What does your inner voice say to you, or what questions does it ask you, as you solve a particular problem or situation?
My inner voice is saying . . .
How has reflecting on your thinking while solving a problem or situation helped your mathematical thinking?
Reflecting on my thinking and listening to my inner voice while solving . . .
What are you learning about yourself as a mathematician from this ongoing project?
I am learning that . . .
What are you realizing about yourself as a mathematician based on the entire year’s reflection project?
This project has made me realize that I . . .
Laurel ends the school year with her students celebrating their cumulative visible and audible evidence-of-learning growth over time as mathematicians and introspective thinkers.
Tutorial Designers.
November (2012) mentions four types of jobs students need to be responsible for on what he calls the digital learning farm, “Tutorial Designers, Students Scribes, Student Researchers, and Global Communicators and Collaborators.” These jobs help students participate and contribute to the whole, much like children did centuries ago on a family farm. The first job, Tutorial Designers, is a perfect fit for capturing evidence of learning through video documentation.
Creating screencasting tutorials provides authentic purpose for the designer by having to break down the steps of a procedure or task into small learning pieces or steps for the end user. The designer needs to think deeply about the cognitive capabilities of the viewing learner, including:
At what points should I divide the steps or process into manageable information segments?
How should I explain the information within each divided step?
What visuals will support the explanation of each step? What will be necessary to point out?
How can I make sure I am aware of not assuming pre-existing knowledge of the learner?
How can I avoid falling into the trap of assuming a detail might be too obvious to mention?
Should I explain what is needed the same way throughout the entire tutorial or change it as needed to keep the learner engaged, address different learning style preferences, or help make what is being explained easier to comprehend?
Will I be using voice-over for the entire tutorial, or will I be including annotexted information as well?
QR Code 9.6 Scan this QR code to read a metacognitive-focused blog post Visible Thinking in Math – Part 2.
http://langwitches.me/math2
Most important to all tutorial designers is constantly thinking about the target audience and not skipping important pieces of information or steps in the explanation process. While some of the above questions may appear sophisticated, even young learners think about similar wonderments when designing tutorials, even if on a simplistic level.
While this section is dedicated to screencasting tutorials, take a moment to watch The Lily Show—Holiday Craft Edition snowflake-making tutorial (scan QR Code 9.7). Nine-year-old Lily (with assistance from her younger sister, Charlie) is the tutor appearing on the screen. She moves through the step-by-step procedure to create paper snowflakes, and she includes coaching points to support and encourage her audience to be successful in making their snowflakes.
Mrs. Villard is a middle-school computer teacher in a K–12 school. She noticed that more and more staff, teachers, and students were coming to her to request assistance in using popular programs, apps, and websites. She realized that these problems offered a perfect, and authentic, screencast tutorial opportunity for her students. Her learning focuses included her students’ abilities to
Articulate the features and functions involved in the selected program, app, or website
Convey a step-by-step procedure or process concisely
Explain orally or in writing using accurate tool or platform-specific vocabulary
Constantly keep the audience viewer in mind when speaking (voice-over) and pointing out various locations on the screen
QR Code 9.7 Scan this QR code to view The Lily Show – Holiday Craft Edition tutorial.
http://langwitches.me/lily-show
Her learning goal was for her students to use foresight and apply empathic understanding regarding the common problems or frustrations that a viewer may be encountering and wants to resolve by viewing the tutorial video. The finalized screencast tutorials will serve as her students’ artifacts. She would have them reflect and analyze them to see if viewer empathy is present explicitly or inferred based on voice-over and image directions.
Her students were enthusiastic about getting started. Before they began planning and creating their screencasts, they surveyed their fellow students from first grade to twelfth grade, all of the K–12 teachers, and the school staff using a Google Form they had collaboratively developed. After the collected survey data were compiled, the results showed a wide variety of tutorial needs, including basic tasks using word-processing tools to in-depth help with creating, navigating, or commenting on classroom blogs.
&n
bsp; QR Code 9.8 Scan this QR code to view the Tutorial Design Checklist.
http://langwitches.me/tutorial-designer-checklist
One of the major challenges that became quickly apparent was the need for considering age-level appropriateness for the tutorial’s topic. In other words, designing a tutorial for a second grader on how to create a shareable DropBox folder would sound and look quite different than one designed for an eighth grader. Each student determined what specific task he or she wanted to focus on for creating a tutorial, including the age-range of the tutorial viewer, which sometimes affected a student’s tutorial choice (e.g., kindergartners would not be independently creating Google Sheets).
Mrs. Villard provided each tutorial-designer with a reminder sheet including
Answering pre-planning reflective questions, similar to those mentioned on page 161.
Using age-appropriate and platform-specific vocabulary when conducting voice-overs
Keeping track of tasks included on a screencasting tutorial design checklist (scan QR Code 9.8)
As part of the pre-documentation phase, her students were responsible for viewing several screencast tutorials available on YouTube to reflect on the effective, or not so effective, design methods and techniques they observed. She included these reflective tutorial-observation questions on their reminder sheet:
What type(s) of tutorial design did I learn from the best? Why?
Which tutorial(s) did I find the most engaging? Why?
What specific actions (e.g., voice-over, directional arrows, framing) enhanced your watching of a favorite tutorial? Why?
A Guide to Documenting Learning Page 21