Instructional Video Assignment Part I

I have selected 6^th grade as my target group for my instructional video assignment. Since I will be returning to teach science in the fall, and we are going to adopt the next generation science standards, I selected physics as my topic area. The specific area of physics that we are going to be taking a look at is potential and kinetic energy. The student population in this area is very low socioeconomic status, and therefore we qualify for all kinds of funding, particularly in the area of technology. The funding made available was used to purchase laptops for every single middle school student, which allows for our classrooms to be one-to-one student to laptop ratio. This provides the opportunity for me to post videos, links, etc. for students to work through at their own pace. 

Video 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7K4V0NvUxRg

Using this video in my classroom to help give an introduction to both kinetic and potential energy would be very useful. The rationale for using this video comes from the “story” like method that it follows to tell the story. I like the way they use a character to explain what is going on throughout the presentation. This would help the students make a more meaningful connection because when the video is finished, I can ask them about what happened to the character at different points in the film. I have found that because of student’s innate fondness of video games and movies, characters are important to them. Instead of referencing something like, “What type of energy was involved when the rock was on the cliff?” I could phrase it as, “What type of energy did our character need to be worried about when he was standing underneath the rock?” I feel that this puts more emphasis on the active character in the video and students would be more likely to remember the part in the movie where this took place.

Video 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ASLLiuejAo

This video would be helpful in introducing energy in my classroom for a couple reasons. The first being, its Bill Nye the science guy and kids just love this character. The second reason this video is excellent to use is because of the demonstration that he does to demonstrate the amount of kinetic energy an object has. It is one thing to explain to your students that there can never be more kinetic energy than potential energy, but to actually take a bowling ball and swing it out and back is a powerful way to represent that for kids. I also really like how he quickly shows how energy transformation can occur in a way that is simple enough for 6^th graders to understand, but still contains all the complexities associated with the transfer of energy. Additionally, I feel that this video would provide a firm basis from which to spark a discussion about energy transfer, and then ultimately get into the conservation of energy.

Reflecting on Digital Storytelling for Teaching and Learning

                The theories that I relied on for creating my digital story drew from dual coding, the multimedia principle, and the modality principle. The basis for creating my digital story ties into dual coding because of my goal to try and present students with a visual representation to correspond with the auditory component. By triggering meaningful connections between the images that I displayed and the format in which I was speaking. For example, when I was discussing the different types of renewable energy, I did not come out and specifically say, “solar panels” when I was narrating, I said, “harness the power of the sun.” Because most people are familiar with at least what a solar panel or a wind turbine look like, there was no need to address what the image was exactly, rather I was able to trigger a connection between the idea a student already has about solar panels, and assimilate it with a new understanding that renewable energy could help save our planet.

                Touching on the multimedia principle, research has shown that students perform better on retention tests when given narration and animation at the same time. Although this was not a “true” animation in the sense of an animated GIF, the concept still seems to remain the same. By presenting pictures to my students with no text, and using narration, I hoped to prevent the cognitive load from becoming too great to handle. In addition, the graph that I used in my story was used to “convey relationships between variables” (Swisher, p21, ¶ 1.) The idea was to have students quickly see the graph, but with little text to fully explain it, I was able to draw a connection between the growing world population and the demands on energy. Lastly, I hit on the modality principle when creating this story by presenting the words in a spoken format rather than a written format. One thing that I will consider for future digital stories is a concept from the coherence principle, in that all extraneous material should be removed from the presentation. In this circumstance, I felt that music played a powerful role in accompanying the message that I was trying to get across. However, this may not always be the case, and so depending on what type of message or information that I am trying to convey, the consideration for removing the music would take place.

                The process of selecting images for this presentation was slightly arduous, just because there were so many pictures that I came across that did not have information clearly stating the licensing information. Because I was unable to positively identify whether or not the image was in the public domain or had a creative commons license, I did not take the chance, and was unable to use those images. My process for selecting my images took a different format than what I have done in the past. After I wrote my first script, I went through and made a PowerPoint presentation with each image, the author, the source link where I retrieved it and the category that it fell into. Using this process helped me keep track of each image that I wanted to utilize, as well as it made the attribution process a lot easier because I was able to quickly pull the information I needed from one source and was able to compile it in the credits portion of my video, as well as include all the links in the description box when I uploaded it to YouTube. Even the pictures that were in the public domain were given attribution in my presentation. The only thing I was unsure of was there were a few images that I used that I personally took when I went to the zoo. When I used those in my presentation, I wasn’t sure if I needed to post those to a website like fotopedia, or Facebook so that they had a source on the internet to be linked too. My assumption was that because it was my own work, I was able to use it in my presentation as I saw fit, and if I wanted to protect those images from being used again, then I would need to upload them and assign a creative commons license to them if I did not want to place them in the public domain. The one thing that I really like doing when I use images for projects that will be made public is to hyperlink each image with the source it came from as well as the author information. In this format, this is not possible because the links would not be active in windows movie maker or the converted YouTube file. Personally, I don’t like the look of long web address links or strange author names, but the process of adhering to the attribution license requires it, so until I figure out how to display the information differently, the process I used will have to work.

                On a side note, I just wanted to say that I was very intrigued by the process you used to have us create this project. When you described that you wanted us to make something that influenced students emotionally or intellectually, it instantly got me thinking about what topics would influence me in one way or another. After I put some thought into it, my passion and intensity to create a dynamic presentation dramatically increased because it was something that was of interest to me. I have noticed that I am more likely to put 110% into something when it is being created for a purpose, as this video was created with the intentions of emotionally altering the way students feel about energy consumption. 

Do You Care? A Digital Story

The attribution links for each image that was used with a creative commons attribution license can be found in the description box on the youtube home page.

Digital Story Script Final

• Hi, my name is Sukari, I am a polar bear cub currently living in the Toldeo Zoo with my sister Suka and our mother, Crystal
• In my short 6 months of life, my curiosity has peaked about why the Zoo has created a carbon footprint exhibit with us as the main attraction
• With the help of some of my animal friends, I have learned that “carbon footprint” is the term used to calculate the amount of greenhouse gas emissions that each person produces
• Currently, our largest source of power comes from burning fossil fuels such as oil, coal and gas which are the cause for greenhouse emissions
• The result of these emissions is thought to be a known cause for the temperatures rising on our planet, which is known as global warming
• Emissions from factories like this rise into the atmosphere and create a thick blanket of what we call “greenhouse gases” that reflect heat back towards Earth. The gases create climate conditions similar to what you would find inside a greenhouse
• With the increasing demands of the world population, and predictions of future population growth indicate that there will be over 9 billion people on Earth by 2050 and the amount of fossil fuels needed to supply everyone with power will have to grow to match that demand
• So, how does that affect polar bears like me?
• Well, us polar bears require a few things to survive, a cold climate, plenty of ocean ice, and the ability to travel across this ice to find food
• The changes in global temperature are causing the ocean ice caps to melt more and more each year
• And when your survival depends on swimming from iceberg to iceberg in search of food, we run into some problems when the distance from one iceberg to another keeps increasing
• Polar bears are natural swimmers but we have a limitation to how far we can travel at one time
• Sadly, some of my brothers and sisters set out to find food and never come across another iceberg to serve as a resting place
• Luckily, there are a lot of people in this world who can see the devastating effects of our rampant energy consumption, and are trying to do something about it, we call these people environmentalists
• They are trying to influence world leaders to invest in alternative sources of energy that do not cause greenhouse emissions
• With the efforts of the environmentalists, some parts of the world are looking to harness the power of the sun as a means to supply electricity
• Others are looking to exploit areas where the wind is constantly blowing
• And some are even pushing for the generation of electricity from falling water
• Nonetheless, the number of people on this planet who rely solely on fossil fuels greatly outnumber those who are interested in preserving its pristine beauty
• The rest of my life is going to be spent staring through this glass at the people who have the ability to make the changes necessary to preserve the existence of my species in the wild
• I just hope that it isn’t too late for everyone to realize that we only have one planet that supports life, and when it’s ruined, there is nowhere else to go, this is not a suitable habitat by any means for us polar bears to survive
• My worst fear is that someday in the near future, my polar bear species is only going to exist within the confines of these glass walls
• So, do your part, help us out, turn off the lights when you leave a room, ride your bike, walk more places, write a letter to your senator about how you feel, because in the end everyone deserves a little happiness

Digital Story Script One

Do You Care? 

• Hi, my name is Suka, I am a polar bear cub living in the Toldeo Zoo.
• I am only 6 months old, but I have learned a lot about how my species is being threatened by global warming
• Currently, our largest source of power comes from burning fossil fuels
• The emissions from these factories rise into the atmosphere and create a thick blanket of what we call “greenhouse gases” that reflect heat back towards Earth. The gases create conditions similar to what you would find inside a greenhouse, hence the origin of it’s name
• Now this creates some problems for polar bears because we require a few things to survive, a cold climate, plenty of ocean ice, and the ability to travel across this ice to find food
• Our way of life is being threatened by the increasing demands of the world population, predictions of future population growth indicate that there will be over 9 billion people on Earth by 2050 and the amount of fossil fuels needed to supply everyone with power will have to grow to match that demand
• The changes in global temperature are causing the ocean ice caps to melt more and more each year
• When your survival depends on swimming from iceberg to iceberg in search of food, we run into some problems when the distance from one iceberg to another keeps increasing
• Polar bears are natural swimmers but we have a limitation to how far we can travel at one time
• Sadly, some of my brothers and sisters set out to find food and never come across another iceberg to serve as a resting place
• Luckily, there are a lot of people in this world who can see the devastating effects of our rampant energy consumption, and are trying to do something about it, we call these people environmentalists
• They are trying to influence world leaders to invest in alternative sources of energy that do not cause greenhouse emissions
• With the efforts of the environmentalists, some parts of the world are looking to harness the power of the sun as a means to supply power
• Others are looking to exploit areas where the wind is constantly blowing
• And some are even pushing for the generation of electricity from falling water
• Nonetheless, the number of people on this planet who rely solely on fossil fuels greatly outnumber those who are interested in preserving its pristine beauty
• The rest of my life is going to be spent staring through this glass at the people who have the ability to make the changes necessary to preserve the existence of my species in the wild
• I just hope that it isn’t too late for everyone to realize that we only have one planet that supports life, and when it’s ruined, there is nowhere else to go
• My worst fear is that someday in the near future, my polar bear species is only going to exist within the confines of these glass walls
• So, do your part, help us out, turn off the lights when you leave a room, ride your bike, walk more places, write a letter to your senator about how you feel, because in the end everyone deserves a little happiness

Reflecting on Digital Images in the Classroom

The GIF presentation that I put together for this assignment was based on the multimedia principle. The basis for my presentation relied on using words and pictures to help students learn better than just words alone. My primary goal was to use the temporal contiguity principle and use animations with narration, however the version of Photoshop that I was using did not allow for the input of audio. I later discovered that the new version does have audio capabilities, which I intend to explore in the future. It was my intention to try and place the words and diagrams together on each slide to prevent any non-successive information; however this is not always feasible when working with large images that take up most of the screen space. It was very difficult to navigate through this program, as this was my first time using it. I learned a great deal the longer that I spent working on my GIF file, and if I had not spent ten hours writing my final GIF, I would have gone back and made some changes to the way that I tweened the animation. Trying to make sure that any images I included in the presentation were relevant and not decorative was another guideline of Swisher’s that I tried to adhere too.

The process of locating images for this presentation was fairly easy. After adjusting my settings in Google to only pull up images that were available for commercial use, I found that all of my images were available through the Wikimedia commons website. Each image that I pulled up was licensed to be in the public domain and free for use by anyone. The primary reason I think this part of the project was successful is the nature of the content that I was working on. Most images that are based on some sort of scientific principle can be found in the public domain. I could see this as being a real challenge to find images that are available for use if I was creating something for pure enjoyment or entertainment. Because I was able to pull all my images from the public domain, I see no issue sharing my work through any form of social media. Overall, in the future I think if it was physically possible, I would like to use a digital camera and capture my own images so that I could manipulate and use them in whatever fashion that I saw fit. The drawback to following an idea like this might arise when you are dealing with a topic that it would be impossible to photograph, such as particles on a subatomic level.

My Animated GIF for Teaching

This is the first GIF that I created, I am not very pleased with the result of it, however the second one that I created is 1092 frames and will not save to the web format, cannot be converted, and so I have lost hope on it.

My Animated GIF for Teaching

The animated GIF that I created for my classroom is based on the importance that one atom possesses in the world of chemical reactions. Students are required to learn about the categorization of the periodic table and the properties associated with each element. One of the biggest misconceptions in this topic area is the idea that all substances on the periodic table are separated by one atom (or one molecule of that element.) Trying to get students to wrap their minds around this distinguishing factor is a rather difficult task, especially since we do not truly know what the atomic model looks like. The gif that I created helps students grasp the concept of putting two different elements together to form a well-known compound, water. When students can visualize the changes in atomic structure that occur during a chemical reaction, their level of understanding should increase dramatically. As students watch the addition of one more atom to water, and the dramatic changes that it undergoes as it turns into an entirely new substance, they can better understand what “one more atom” exactly means. When students can grasp this concept of chemical change, they can broaden their understanding once they have made the realization that all the elements are different from one another because of one more atom or one less atom.

A Thousand Words About Renewable and Non-Renewable Resources

Images: Source Author: USGS
The images were featured on the website of the U.S House Subcommittee on Energy and Natural Resources. As a work of the U.S. federal government, the image is in the public domain.
All images were taken from wikimedia commons

5 points for energy!
- There are 2 different categories of resources that we use for energy, renewable and non-renewable. They are separated by the thick black line.
- The yellow side shows all the renewable sources of energy and is intended to be "full of life and color"
- The black side shows all the non-renewable sources of energy and is intended to be "dark and colorless"
- The image representation in this collage is intended to send a message that non-renewable sources of energy are bad, and the renewable sources are good!
- Each of the images represents a type of power that we use

Use in the classroom
I will be returning to 6th grade science in the fall and one of my content expectations is energy. Specifically understanding how energy is transferred and what sources of energy we utilize the most. In addition, I need to educate the students on the demands for energy that the 8 billion people in this world are currently in need of. Because of the strain on these resources that cannot be renewed, it is imperative that we educate the future generation in the hopes that they will one day make the necessary changes at the government level to put a stop to the planet destroying methods we are currently using. My goal in using this image is to get students to see the "thick black line" that separates the two different types of resources. (As an extension to this activity, I could incorporate a social studies lesson where we discuss the methods associated with lobbying for a new bill, and the process involved in seeing that it is passed.)(You could even dive further into the economical portion of this debate and discuss how "big oil" is in control of everything)

Produce Man