Class 7: February 18, 2010

Season's Greetings!

I'm a day eariler that I said I'd be. Oh well.

This week, I’ll begin with a piece of the quote Mike said gripped him:

"Assessment and filtering greatly impact the degree to which some technologies can be adopted in schools..."

We’ve been talking about how to assess and filter internet content since the beginning of the course. It’s something we need to teach, a new literacy. Interestingly, I found what I think is a good article in my travels since class time (since I am posting this on Sunday, I had some time to do some homework). It has to do with film literacy and was published in 1955. It can be seen at my resources site (I use the Google free space), titled The Necessity of Learning How to See a Film. It is quite connected to what we’ve been doing with film and literacy and has everything to do with assessing and filtering. The Peters (the one linked above about how to see a film) article also underscores a part of Mike’s second quote:

"... those who have the opportunity to learn technology skills are in a better position to obtain and make use of technology than those who do not."

O Literacy, Literacy! Wherefore art though Literacy? Survival, says Literacy, survival. We must be able to grant equal access to technology if everyone will have the opportunity to find success in the 21st century, unless we go back to horse and buggy. Wealth still influences the digital divide in education, by how much money school districts have to spend on technology.

Anyone know what time it is? Remember, there’s an app for that!! A little segue to my next point, the films! Tom Wujec made his point about the relativity of technology, and so did Sid Davis with his work of safety. “To everything (turn, turn, turn) there is a season (turn, turn, turn), a time to every purpose under heaven.” Do you know the song by the Byrds, the lyrics from Ecclesiates (music by Pete Seeger, 1959)? Not sure how the titleless, creditless YouTube shorts of today fit into what I’ve just said. Perhaps it's that titleless and creditless film is like graffiti. That fits with today’s season... an environmental mess all over, irresponsible corporate executives, unaccountable governments, cutbacks to education funding. Ya, I guess there's a fit. I think the Sid Davis film is more pertinent to the times than is apparent... we always need to be careful how we work and play. That message never goes out of season.

Last message. The BMW commercial. Denis asked, “What’s the message.” Ah... small ideas become big ones that can culminate in a saving power, the Hydrogen 7! Great idea. Too bad it's more expensive to run that car than an old gas guzzler. I am caught up with what Denis pointed to about the duration of the individual shots. How many frames of film? One to two second clips glued together. The commercial is a great short film that has great implications for the classroom. This is not to say we use existing commercials in the classroom, though we can. Here I’m getting at creating short films with goals in mind. How did Madden do his films, how did Sid Davis do his? The techniques of filmmaking could be applied to make excellent learning objects, objects that grab attention and deliver the message. Maybe I’ll have one ready for my 10 minute TED.