In Time Video and Teaching with Technology

As part of our lessons on production this week, we were asked to look at the In Time video site.  Production implies asking students to produce a project based on a problem or activity.  The students must design their output, learn the technology tools that can create it, then actually create the output using the tool.

In Time Video has a very good search tool that will allow teachers to search for videos based on content area, teaching level, and several other criteria.  Then they can look at videos that match their interests and get ideas of how to incorporate technology tools into their classroom experience.

Although I found the site very interesting, at this point I encountered a problem.  Not being a teacher, I had a hard time finding a video lesson that was specifically related to my job.  I hope to apply my experiences in this program to adult learning opportunities surrounding my career.  However I was able to find a video lesson that was related to a specific interest of mine, namely cycling.

The lesson that I reviewed was called Le Tour de France.  This lesson showed students in a high school French class using the internet to research the cities and towns that the the Tour de France would be visiting that year.  They then had to research these areas using the internet, and prepare a PowerPoint presentation and a brochure as if they were a travel agent selling a trip to that town.  In the last step, the students were asked to present their projects to the class, and the winning presentation was also presented over the internet to another class in a different school. This gave me several ideas of how to apply this technique to the technology classes that I am likely to teach in my job.  Although the classes that I teach are more likely to be about networking and computers, I could still have my classes create presentation explaining their specific subject.  They could also then present these to the group to demonstrate their mastery of the subject.  I also like the idea of having them produce a brochure as if they were trying to sell the component or tool that they are learning about.  This would require them to have a strong mastery of the features or benefits of the item, and would still allow them the ability to use creativity in their expression.  This will help improve overall retention of the material, in addition to being a lot of fun.