January 2006 — Smart Classroom
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Camera Ready
Having the use of a camcorder has brought some unexpected benefits, as well. Rather than sell candy bars as a fundraiser, we sold CDs of our classroom videos and had great success. Selling out quickly, we had to burn another batch to keep up with demand. My students were very proud of their work, and it made for an outstanding business lesson as well. We calculated our expense/profit ratio, handled real money, truly personalized the issues of copyright law and digital piracy. It was a real eye-opener for all of us. We've definitely sold our last candy bar.
Over time, we've refined our video-making process. For starters, all group projects have to begin with a written proposal and a completed storyboard sheet. This is not to say we don't tape interesting events when they come our way, but the best learning happens when a project is well researched on the front end. This is one of my favorite stages of the process, because it's so much like the process of writing an essay. It's easy for me to point to a cell of the storyboard and observe that some missing detail leaves me wondering. Students end up practicing the same skills that they would for a written assignment, but they have a lot more fun with a video project and they catch more of their own mistakes. I also select an appropriate rubric and give the group a copy at our first group meeting. On the Lightsmith Web site, there are several links to planning sheets, storyboards, and rubrics, and the company throws in a few customizable versions of its own on the included Resource CD.
We've also learned to burn an archival copy of our finished video projects in avi format on DVDs, because it lets us better use our video clips in the future. We found out the hard way that simply saving a compressed wmv file of a project before deleting the original footage doesn't cut it-it's fine for watching on a computer or hosting on a Web site, but the compressed video has lost too much quality to ever be viewed on a big screen or shown on a cable-TV station. Saving an avi copy preserves all your options.
