More Marco

As long as I am on creativity Darren does a great post on Marco Torres on his blog. He adds more information about the video clip I posted on Digital Students@Analog Schools.

Darren says...

What's most interesting about this video is that the kids did it themselves; on their own initiative. It wasn't for a school assignment or project. It was spawned from the frustration they felt following their first year's experience at university; what should be the highest quality education and pedagogy but wasn't. (I tried to get a university professor friend of mine to watch it. He couldn't watch more than half of it before he stopped the playback and began to explain to me "the realities of being a university professor ... I'm not doing justice to his perspective -- maybe I can get him to guest author a post where he can articulate his position in his own words. ;-))

I hope Darren does get him to post because I take classes from professors who also are still deeply entrenched in old school methodologies. Except one-- Dr. Gene Roche who is looking closely at media literacy and how it should change practice on a university level. Gardner Campbell who teaches at Mary Washington is another professor who "gets it" and there are others. But for the most part, Darren is right.

None of the kids in the video attend the same university, they never met face-to-face to produce or edit it. They planned and edited it using IM. Each had their footage shot locally and then they shared the files over the internet. Marco provided editorial assistance. Watch the credits at the end. They chose to do the credits in the same format they used to produce the video.

Marco apparently went to look up the professor's PhD thesis. Since it had been published it had been signed out only twice. Both times by the professor himself. His kids videos are downloaded tens of thousands of times. Marco makes a good point here, but I couldn't help thinking that quality scholarship is not a popularity contest.

Darren said he and Marco talked about collaborating on video projects between classrooms. That will be very cool to follow. I want to help the teachers I work with start to produce videos of their own. Videos with just as powerful a message that can reach the students, parents, and educators within their reach. Video is the most powerful tool at an educator's disposal. It is a language their students speak. They must gain confidence in their own creativity before they will be able to "give it away" to their students.

Thanks Darren for such a fabulous post-- you have me buzzing with ideas.

Comments

[Darren Kuropatwa]

Marco's examples were incredibly powerful. It made all of us want to have our kids express themselves with the same kind of energy and creativity. Of course it's not as easy as all that. Issues of learning the tech and finding the time and still covering the required curriculum, well, loom large.

I say all this without having actually tried it yet myself. I guess I'm feeling a little intimidated by the high quality work Marco's students exhibited. I guess it's time for me to Seize the Time! as Anne would say. ;-) And Marco's Flick School site should help. ;-)