This was a really fun assignment, although also quite time-consuming. The part I envisioned taking the most time was the making of the video, but in actual fact it was finding appropriate photos. Finding appropriate photos for my theme was a little difficult, then when I thought I'd found the perfect ones, they would be copyrighted. Aargghhhh! It took hours of trawling the websites Kevin recommended before I found ones I could use (at one point, I jokingly had an inner debate about whether it was ethical to go out onto the streets of Kathmandu to take some photos myself. I didn't obviously.)
The final product is one that I am proud of. It might not be the most 'put-together' PSA out there, but, having never made a video before, I taught myself how to use we-video (thanks for the recommendation Kevin!) and imagined ways I could use it in my classroom. Slow and lost internet connectivity were maybe my biggest frustrations, but that seems quite churlish given the content of my PSA.
This learning activity came at a perfect time for my students and I, as after our autumn break we are starting a persuasive writing unit. The objective of the unit is to persuade a village in Nepal to use the new water system that the Finnish government provided them with (article here). A simple and effective way for students to present to these villagers would be through a PSA, and I may include that option in the final choices of summative assessments. Furthermore, we used Diigo as a class to read the article mentioned above. I created a group for that class, shared the article, wrote guiding and check-in questions throughout and asked students to highlight unknown words. It worked like a dream! My students were also very happy to be introduced to this software as it will help them immensely with their research and when they do group research.
A class I'll definitely use PSAs in is grade 6 advisory (homeroom) class. This year our service learning project is to clean up our school and parts of Kathmandu. We have a core group of students who are in charge of videoing our litter picking outings and other activities throughout the year and creating a PSA to share with the school seems like an ideal learning opportunity, both for the grade 6 students and the rest of school.
The final product is one that I am proud of. It might not be the most 'put-together' PSA out there, but, having never made a video before, I taught myself how to use we-video (thanks for the recommendation Kevin!) and imagined ways I could use it in my classroom. Slow and lost internet connectivity were maybe my biggest frustrations, but that seems quite churlish given the content of my PSA.
This learning activity came at a perfect time for my students and I, as after our autumn break we are starting a persuasive writing unit. The objective of the unit is to persuade a village in Nepal to use the new water system that the Finnish government provided them with (article here). A simple and effective way for students to present to these villagers would be through a PSA, and I may include that option in the final choices of summative assessments. Furthermore, we used Diigo as a class to read the article mentioned above. I created a group for that class, shared the article, wrote guiding and check-in questions throughout and asked students to highlight unknown words. It worked like a dream! My students were also very happy to be introduced to this software as it will help them immensely with their research and when they do group research.
A class I'll definitely use PSAs in is grade 6 advisory (homeroom) class. This year our service learning project is to clean up our school and parts of Kathmandu. We have a core group of students who are in charge of videoing our litter picking outings and other activities throughout the year and creating a PSA to share with the school seems like an ideal learning opportunity, both for the grade 6 students and the rest of school.
Sarah this video is fantastic, it really turned out great. Its not hard to be persuasive with powerful images like the ones you have collected. As for your quip that "I jokingly had an inner debate about whether it was ethical to go out onto the streets of Kathmandu to take some photos myself. " I certainly would not have discouraged that. Quite the opposite, in fact, he most authentic interaction with this research would have been to have collected those images yourself. It would have taken more time of course, but you would avoid all copyright issues.
ReplyDeleteFurthermore, I love your idea for using a PSA with your upcoming unit and the idea of making it a choice. I think you should totally go for it. Thanks for putting in the time, it was a joy to watch.
Lovely video Sarah! The images that you chose made the message even more powerful!
ReplyDeleteWe would love to have a chance to showcase this video. Could you please get in touch with us at marketing(at)wevideo.com?
We believe that having 6th graders create PSA's like this one is a great project and we would love to follow their journey.
Thanks for choosing WeVideo to share your story.
Best,
The WeVideo Team