Video Scavenger Hunt.
When participating in a traditional scavenger hunt, the goal is to find discrete items. The same is true for a video scavenger hunt.
On a professional level, it is not uncommon for teachers and administrators to participate in classroom observations or walkthroughs. Instead of entering with a textual-recording source, enter with a camera in hand. Based on predetermined one or two discrete focuses, purposefully hunt for and capture video clips that express the desired learning moment (or possibly lack thereof) so the educator being observed can be included in the unpacking and reflection process in the post-documentation phase. Do not collect tons of footage. Only record what is necessary to adequately capture the pre-determined focuses. During the post-observation meeting, the footage can be unpacked by both the observer and the observee. If desired, the video clips can then be annotexted and included in the teacher’s professional digital portfolio.
For a collaborative professional learning scavenger hunt, have a documenting team pre-select the scavenger-hunt skill or behavior “items” that need to be collected based on a specific discipline’s learning specifics, or soft-skill habits or temperaments (e.g., a student providing two reasons for evidence related to a claim; student displaying self-control), which will be shared at the next professional-meeting time.
The rules are simple:
No video clips can be no longer than 30 seconds.
All of the pre-selected skill or behavior items must be captured.
Once a participant has collected all of the required items, he or she imports the video clips into a preferred video-editing tool (e.g., iMovie, Movie Maker, Apple Clips, Adobe Spark Video) and places them in order of the agreed-upon scavenger-hunt item list. He or she then annotexts the clips using reflective subtitles and text boxes, or adds reflective audio commentary to create a video documentation artifact.
When the team reconvenes, each person plays his or her video on a screen or whiteboard while the rest of the team watches and takes mental or written notes. After all the videos have been viewed, the group collaboratively discusses the videos’ highlights, reflects on the documenting opportunity in general, and if appropriate, plans for the next professional-learning scavenger hunt.
As with adult learners, a video scavenger hunt can heighten students’ awareness for particular topics, learning objectives, or making personal connections. For example, two fifth-grade classrooms traditionally end the school year by visiting a local science and history museum near their school. Mrs. Heavener and the other fifth-grade teacher wanted their classes to experience this year’s field trip through the lens of a collaborative documenting opportunity. While they worked with their respective class regarding the documentation phases and learningflow routine, the culminating experience would be to share their scavenger hunt–based videos to the other class, as well as guest docents from the museum.
Mrs. Heavener began by providing context for her students. She shared, “You have learned so much this year, both in science and history. Given we will be going to a museum focused on these two subjects soon, you need to decide what you would like to focus on while there and participate in a video scavenger hunt for information.” Her class was excited, but unclear about what she meant by a video scavenger hunt in this context. She asked them to be patient, and continued, “First, as a class you need to come to a consensus on what you will be researching and conveying information about based on the topics we focused on in science or history this past school year.” After brainstorming topics, she had them facilitate their own decision-making process (with a little bit of coaching, when needed) to narrow down their topics, and then refine the selected topic to be more specific and actionable. The class’s final selection was: healthy eating equals healthy minds and bodies.
She then facilitated a brainstorming session on possible video-based collecting and capturing scavenger-hunt item options while at the museum that will collectively convey to an audience of peers and guests how the museum provides information concerning their selected science-health idea. By the conclusion of the brainstorming process, Mrs. Heavener’s class had five video requirements that made up their scavenger-hunt item list:
A video that explains what nutrition means and its importance for staying healthy
A video interview with a museum curator about one of the exhibits that supports having healthy minds or bodies
A video that explains important facts to persuade viewers to eat and drink healthy foods
A sightseeing tour through one of the interactive exhibits with an explanation that aids viewers in understanding why it is important to eat healthy every day
A 30-second Public Service Announcement to encourage viewers to stay healthy now, so it will help them stay healthy as they grow older
Lastly, each student selected which one of the five scavenger-hunt items he or she wanted to work on as a mini-team to capture the needed information while at the museum. The class ended up being in groups of either four or five per item.
Mrs. Heavener then modeled and coached her students through the Look for Learning step in the pre-documentation phase before going on their field trip. Each team researched the museum’s website to get a feeling for the exhibits that would best aid them in their video scavenger-hunt item during their visit. She met with each team and discussed their roles and overall goals for each team’s item. For example, she reviewed the attributes of good interview questions for the museum-curator interview item. For all the teams, she provided three questions and a visible thinking routine to consider when filming at the museum to support their team’s learning evidence and address the scavenger-hunt item requirements:
What do I notice?
Why do I think that?
How do I know?
Visible Thinking Routine: I see, I think, I wonder
She reminded them to
Bring a recording device: either your own smartphone, or check out a tablet from the school library.
Do not take any video clips longer than 30 seconds.
Be aware of the lighting and noise level in the area you are choosing to record.
Make connections by asking yourselves questions, such as: What did I encounter that I already knew something about? What have I learned that is brand new? How does this help me understand what we need to express to our audience in our video?
Be ready to share with your audience: What surprised you? What was most interesting to you? Will this information keep your video viewers interested too?
Film your team responding to the following reflective statements at the conclusion of our time at the museum: I used to think . . . Now I think . . .
Mrs. Heavener and her colleague were impressed with the excitement, teamwork, and tenacity their students displayed while at the museum. The next day during the post-documentation phase, Mrs. Heavener’s student teams began to unpack, edit, and annotext their captured video clips to create their video artifacts that addressed their team’s item focus. Two teams forgot to record themselves responding to the final reflective statements at the museum, so she gave each team the choice of using the voice-over function in their movie-tool’s editing program, or annotexting their reflections by adding text frames to their movie.
As a class, the students watched each team’s draft movie and collectively used a video-media rubric to determine if each team met or exceeded their scavenger-hunt item requirements. If a team did not reach the desired level concerning a specific rubric specification, the class and Mrs. Heavener provided thoughtful feedback to aid them in improving the quality of their video.
Finally, the day came for the two classes to present their videos to each other and the museum guests. The other class of fifth graders had selected a history focus, which made it a perfect match for the museum’s twofold purpose. After presenting their videos, the students asked for improvement feedback concerning their videos’ messages and appreciated what the docents suggested. One of the docents mentioned tha
t she was going to speak to the curators of both wings (history and science) and see if they could use the videos at the museum in some capacity, with their parents’ or guardians’ permission. This was an unexpected amplification degree that the fifth graders were thrilled to hear!
Notecard Confession Video.
Notecard confession videos are a technique for telling a short narrative that elicits emotions and encourages continued reflection from viewers. In essence, the confession is a message the creator wants to share but has never had the confidence to do so before publicly.
If you viewed Brittany’s confession video (scan QR Code 9.2), you can see that she tapped deeply into her personal emotions concerning her mother’s debilitating disease and how it is affecting her life. Through her simple, yet powerful, statements she clearly provided evidence of her metacognition, reflection, and understanding. One important note: If you are a teacher, you noticed Brittany’s misspellings and grammar errors. This is one of those documenting experiences where that does not matter! It is about connecting with oneself and connecting with viewers, which Brittany does by asking foreshadowing questions: Do you have a mom? Does she know your middle name? or your birthday? Can she spell your NAME? Can she read?
QR Code 9.2 Scan this QR code to experience an index-card narrative Hi my name is Brittany.
http://langwitches.me/index-cards
In the pre-documentation phase, the confession-creator (learner-documenter) begins by reflecting introspectively on the message he, she, or they want to convey by developing a string of short phrases that become sentences. Each sentence segment is written on an index card using a thick, dark marker. The cards are stacked so they cumulatively create the completed sentences. During this time, the background music is also determined. The learner needs to make certain there is no copyright infringement by using the audio selection.
During documentation, the learner/character sits in front of a camera and recording begins. While the original intent of the confession-video concept is for the confessor to be the one filming him or herself; for adaption to a classroom setting, the recording could be done by a peer or adult. When the learner/character is revealing the index cards, he or she needs to remember to place the displaying of each card so that the audience has time to take in and reflect on each card, as well as the collective cards.
Therefore, there may need to be a few “takes” before the documenter is satisfied with the flow.
In the post-documentation phase, the raw footage is uploaded to a movie-creation tool, such as Movie Maker. The documenter either simply adds an introduction segment and exit segment (including music attribution) to the favorite takes, or does some editing or remixing of individual clips, plus adding intro and exit segments to create the final video production. The video can then be uploaded to the desired platform and shared with the amplification degree desired.
While using the concept of emotional-based notecard confession videos provides opportunities to convey worthwhile messages and experiment with a powerful communication strategy, adapting the confession concept to specific classroom learning is also worthwhile and engaging. Examples of notecard confession videos that provide evidence of learning could include researching
An historical character and taking on his or her persona and revealing a confession (including dressing like the character when filming, if possible)
Statistics related to a local or global problem to convey the magnitude of a particular statistic or statistics as the researcher or by taking on a character that is affected by the static (e.g., a sea turtle who is upset because fellow turtles are being killed due to the ingestion of plastics being thrown into the ocean)
A cause or issue to be advocated through promoting awareness and encouraging action steps
Bitesize Learning.
Gutierrez (2014) quotes Cohen’s (director at a creative agency that specializes in social-media strategies and data visualization) definition of bitesize information:
Bite-sized nuggets of content that are easy to consume, sometimes they’re images or image based, whose meaning can be grasped quickly, and often create deeper meaning by referencing shared experiences or stories. And essentially, it’s faster than reading an explanation of the same information.
Couros (2015b), an educational advocate for innovative change, expanded on Gutierrez’s bitesize-learning concept to the video feature available in the Twittersphere, “Knowing that Twitter has recently created an option to share videos up to 30 seconds, I thought about creating a new project to get people to share ideas and things that they are doing, going beyond the 280 characters.” Couros provided a hashtag to aid in his project’s crowdsourcing and amplification: #EDUin30.
QR Code 9.3 Scan this QR code to read Couros’s blog post New Project: #EDUin30.
http://langwitches.me/couros
The point of creating bitesize 30-second learning moments is not to create a Hollywood-quality production. Instead, the intent is to capture thoughtful anecdotes through conversational-style snippets that can be crowdsourced and accessed easily over time.
Think about the positive impacts sharing and amplifying in a global-learning community could have if every educator recorded an #EDUin30 video once a month. He or she could share his or her thoughts about any topic related to becoming an increasingly effective teacher, administrator, or professional learner. And, as Couros recommends, include a few more hashtags that relate to that month’s video’s topic, which contributes to amplifying one’s sharing.
To adapt Couros’ #EDUin30 concept for student-learner use, one suggestion is to use the Visible Thinking Routines prompts from ProjectZero.com and have students create 30-second bitesize documentation artifacts that they can unpack and reflect on over time to see if there are patterns or trends to what they are saying or conveying.
In the post-documentation phase, given the 30-second video is not meant to be polished, it simply needs to be uploaded to a classroom, school, local, or global networking community using two of the following hashtags: #LearnIn30, #StudentVoices, #ReflectionTime, as well as a hashtag appropriate to the topic or idea being shared, such as #StopWastingWater, #WrinkleInTime, #NoMorePlastic, #DanceForLife. And do not forget to include #documenting4learning.
If a teacher decides that deeper reflection or a specific learning goal should be focused on in post-production, the video footage can be annotexted by the learners using an appropriate tool, such as iMovie.
Interviews.
Video interviews provide viewers with an opportunity to experience someone’s unique perspective through his or her voice, tone, facial expressions, and personality. Digitally enhanced communication involving interviewing for personal and educational purposes has expanded in recent years thanks to the immediacy of video cameras in smartphones, tablets, and platforms, such as Skype, FaceTime, and Google Hangout.
When recording an interview conducted via one of these video conferencing platforms, one has to keep in mind that they do not natively support a recording feature to capture the interview taking place as a stand-alone video file. For Google Hangouts, an alternative is using Google Hangout on Air, which broadcasts the interview live and publicly; then automatically saves the recording to the person’s YouTube account. For Skype and FaceTime, the alternative is recording the interview using a third-party app (tool), or choosing to use a screencasting tool to record the screen and audio while conducting the video conference.
As mentioned previously, when conducting Mystery Skype Call interviews, both classes work to narrow down each other’s geographic locations. While there is excitement when the locations are eventually determined, the true power of the connecting begins when each class asks two or three data-based questions about the everyday life or culture of their new-found friends and discover similarities and differences among the collective groups interviewed by adding a degree of amplification by sharing the cumulative data with each new set of friends they encounter.
For example, Mr. Fr
ederick’s third-grade class asked their newest Mystery Skype Call friends in Mrs. Isaac’s third-grade class their first data collection question, “What was the main food each person in your class ate for breakfast today?” After conducting their data collection and calculating, Mrs. Isaac’s class’s interviewer shares, “Fifteen people ate cereal, five people ate pancakes, two people ate grapefruit, and one person ate oatmeal.”
Mr. Frederick’s class quickly adds the latest data to their data collection chart. In a few moments, Mr. Frederick’s class’s interviewer shares fill-in-the-blank sentences that the data-collectors had just completed,
With your data, the most common breakfast food is still cereal. From 125 people surveyed, 68 ate cereal for breakfast on the days we have skyped. No other breakfast food has that high of a number for a subtotal.” You could hear the chatter among Mrs. Isaac’s students. Soon their interviewer asks, “What about pancakes?”
The data collectors and a few other students in Mt. Fredericks’ class quickly scan their data collection and confer with the interviewer who responds,
That is sort of a tricky question because we have a subtotal of 35 pancakes, but also a subtotal of five people who ate crȇpes for breakfast. Crȇpes are kind of like pancakes, just not exactly like the ones we make here in the United States. We decided that to answer your question, we are counting both foods as pancakes, so out of 125 people surveyed, 40 people ate pancakes on the days we have skyped.
In this Skype-call exchange, the amplification was increased because Mr. Frederick’s class not only asked their data-collection questions, but they also shared their cumulative results with each interviewed class: San Diego, California, in the United States; Montreal, Quebec, and Wood Buffalo, Alberta, in Canada; Nassau, Bahamas, which now included a fifth location: Syracuse, New York.
A Guide to Documenting Learning Page 20
