The Big Fresh from Choice Literacy February 20, 2010 Lets Rewind the Tape


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The Big Fresh from Choice Literacy
February 20, 2010
Let's Rewind the Tape

The teacher wanted her students to learn a little about perseverance, and she knew just the video to show. The YouTube clip of a baby squirrel and her mama was a web phenom, with millions of views. You may have seen it yourself - a baby squirrel is trying to scale a wall, and succeeds only after some "scaffolding" is provided.

The problem was her school had the YouTube site blocked. No worries - with the popularity of the video, she was sure to find it elsewhere on the web. With a little googling, the video popped up on an obscure blog. She bookmarked the site, and played the clip the next morning for her third graders.

They were captivated, giggling at the baby squirrel's efforts and cheering on the mama's support. And then the video ended with the loud words, "What the f#@K?" Except the last word had no # and @ in it, and it's not one you'd ever want to hear in a third-grade classroom.

With some quick thinking and discussion, students moved beyond the inappropriate audio ending and right back into the teaching points from the video. But it's likely the teacher learned more than the students about the problems and promise of using videos from the web.

The first lesson is that any video that is publicly posted is ripe to be remixed and reformatted, mashed and hacked, in ways that might horrify the person who posted it. The best-known recent example of this phenomenon is "David After Dentist," a video of a seven-year-old in the car driving home after a dental procedure as the anesthetics are wearing off. There's a lot of controversy about whether the video should ever have been posted by David's father, given some of the disturbing remixes and uses of it on the web. It's well worth it for schools to pay the minimal costs of some extra bandwidth or the use of closed hosting services for their videos, rather than a public forum like YouTube where anyone can download and remix them.

The second lesson is that blanket banning of video sites like YouTube
really do limit the resource base of teachers. For every cautionary
tale of a YouTube video viewing in a school, there are scores of
examples of teachers using videos from the web to enhance teaching and learning dramatically. The teacher in this incident would never have had that awful surprise in her classroom if YouTube wasn't banned - she could have accessed the original, clean version of the squirrel video readily.

The last lesson is one that never changes - always review
your teaching materials before you use them. The video you are
viewing or article you've planned to read may be the same one you have used a dozen times before, but that doesn't matter. Something that is innocuous and appropriate one year might have a big red flag in it the next when it comes to language, teaching points, or potentially offensive ideas.

This week we highlight the promise of the web with some tools that can cut your staff meeting time and foster more collaboration. Plus more as always - enjoy!

Brenda Power
Editor, Choice Literacy

Free for All

Karen Szymusiak is a principal who knows how precious teacher time is, and how much she prizes collaboration. With the help of some new free tools on the web, Karen has increased staff collaboration and discussion without adding meetings to the schedule. She shares new resources in Collaborating with Colleagues Using Web Tools:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/public/1088.cfm

If you're interested in reading more about the David After Dentist video controversy, here is a good link to different discussions on the web. The article also includes the video. Viewing the video and debating how much and when to post on the web would be a provocative way to start a staff meeting:

http://bit.ly/bx2IzQ

Common Craft is a wonderful resource for free, "school safe" videos on the web. Their short video Protecting Reputations Online in Plain English is the perfect launch to a class discussion of student posting standards:

http://www.commoncraft.com/protecting-reputations-video

What do we need to teach students about being ethical users of technology? Kim Cofino from the Always Learning blog shares goals, learning and reflections after a middle school technology unit. Kim is such a remarkable teacher, you are almost certain to take away some new ideas for expanding and enhancing your digital goals. I love the digital citizenship handbook created by the students:

http://bit.ly/7QBglY

Demonstration Lessons and Making Assessments Work for You are the latest DVDs from Choice Literacy. Clare Landrigan and Tammy Mulligan take viewers through a series of grade-level team meetings linking data analysis, planning, lessons, and debriefs. If you want to get more out of your team meetings and observations, these DVDs have the examples and protocols you need. With our spring sale, save $99 when you buy the two DVDs together:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/products/item27.cfm

For Members Only

We've posted the first edition of our new digest, 21st Century Literacy, on using technology in the classroom and with colleagues to enhance reading and writing instruction. The digest features over a dozen links to articles, videos, and tech tools:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/members/1087.cfm

Clare Landrigan meets with a small group of 5th graders after a demonstration lesson in this week's video. The goal is to build connections between inferring and vocabulary development. This is the third video in a series, with catch-up links included:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/members/1094.cfm

Julie Johnson gives an update on her school's efforts to become a model writing school:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/members/1072.cfm

Finally, if you have the best intentions over spring break to organize materials you are collecting at Choice Literacy for staff meetings and curriculum planning, you'll definitely want to start using the My Favorites feature. This widget allows you to sort, file, and annotate materials using whatever categories work best for you:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/members/846.cfm

That's all for this week!