I’ve traditionally been suspicious of any kind of programme linked to one specific platform. I had reservations about taking part in the NGfL Cymru Innovative Education Forum as it was a Microsoft only affair (but did it anyway!), but after hearing Ian Addison talk at at Teachmeet about the Google Teacher Academy I decided that if another opportunity arose I would apply.
The Google Teacher Academy is a day long event where 50 invited educators (the net is cast wider than just ‘teachers’) get together to get a
hands-on experience with Google’s free products and other technologies, learn about innovative instructional strategies, receive resources to share with colleagues, and immerse themselves in an innovative corporate environment.
To apply you have to create a one minute video on either Motivation and Learning” or “Classroom Innovation”
I’d been racking my brains for a while (although needless to say only got round to making the video with 24 hours to go). I came up with two ‘hooks’ for the video. One was that I was going to combine the two titles and talk about the motivation and learning that came from classroom innovation. Secondly I’d come up with the analogy of my room and my teaching currently being in a state of perpetual beta (as many Google products often are)
The original idea was to film it in my classroom, although having no car meant I couldn’t get in, so I filmed it at home instead. The other thing that didn’t quite go to plan is that as I putting the finishing touches to it, I realised that in the take I’d used I’d actually forgotten to put in the line about my classroom being in beta!!! By that point thought it was 2am and there was no way I was going to reshoot, so it went it without.
The video itself was made in keynote. My piece to camera was recorded straight into the mac (using iMovie) and the for the opening screenshot clip I used the free screencast-o-matic.com/ site. All the other elements were set up with timed animations and the whole thing was exported to Quicktime. The only thing that went a bit wrong was the timings on the exported video didn’t match them when played in Quicktime, so I had to go back in and extra seconds here and there to get it to (more or less) sync up.
Am I happy with it? Fairly. With the two exceptions mentioned above it’s more or less as I envisaged. I wanted something that made use of the fact that this could be replayed. Hopefully you get the gist from one watch, but you can go back and dig into the text and images with repeated viewing.
Is it good enough to get me in? I really have no idea. There are some fabulous videos out there (I avoided watching any of them until mine was done) and I don’t envy those people who need to vote on them and draw up the shortlist. Even if I don’t make it though, it’s been a good project to stop and reflect on what I do.
The video should be embedded below. If it’s not you can see it at http://youtu.be/uKFaicG_JYM