Applying Media arts with limited devices

I also found the tutorial very inspiring! I believe the activities we did today could be used in very underprivileged schools successfully. I really enjoyed the stop animation my group made with a paper skeleton, a big old TV and a cheap video recorder. This activity could also work with a digital still camera if video was unavailable. I believe you would be rather hard pressed to find a school that did not have access to a computer these days. I studied media at university and have always planned to integrate it heavily into my curriculum teaching. Making films in poor isolated indigenous communities is what inspired me to become a teacher. You can pick up a high definition video camera for as little as $250 and it's a great way to get kids enthusiastic about areas of the curriculum they may find uninspiring (integrating link in toolkit). Also by using 'in camera editing' techniques you can remove the need for a computer. As Daniel Greenwood (2003) explains "students are excited by video projects and immerse themselves in the experience and talk about them long after they are over"(p.1). He further points out that video requires "students to understand subject matter both on an emotional and intellectual level because video relates mood, tone, intensity and feeling in addition to information" (2003, p.1). Because students work so intimately with the material they do not soon forget it!

If there really isn't any equipment around, there is still a great need to teach students how to be media literate and this can simply be done with images or looking at text. Today's lesson on deconstructing pictures from third generation crops was fantastic and I will certainly be using it in class as soon as I get a chance!

Reference:

Greenwood, D. (2003). Action! in the classroom : a guide to student produced digital video in K-12 education. Lanham, Md. : Rowman & Littlefield Education.

Chapter one of this reference 'Video projects for the classroom' is a great resource.