Attached here is a brochure advertising the Educational Vodcasting Workshop scheduled for August 4-6, 2008. The event will teach participants how to make vodcasts, how to use them in a variety of educational settings, and how to manage vodcasts. The brochure seeks to promote the use of vodcasting in schools by giving examples of its potential uses such as:
· Providing more class time for hands-on learning by making the vodcast part of a student’s homework
· Allowing access to daily class materials via iPod, phone, computer or DVD for students who miss class
· The ability for students to replay content whenever, wherever, and as often as needed
Upon reviewing this brochure, as a TL, would a workshop like this be useful to you if your school agreed to send you? Do you think the pro-vodcast points given above are valid? Why or why not?
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4 comments:
I'll go, I love conferences!
Because I think educational vodcasting is much more fitting for Middle or High settings I wouldn't be best choice to send. As long as the school has the necessary equipment to create the vodcasts I think it would be worth it to send a team of a classroom teacher and a MS/HS librarian for training. Such a team could co-lead afterschool trainings for faculty to try to get others on board.
You certainly wouldn't want every teacher using this format though. First of all it would unreasonable to essentially extend the school day by requiring students to listen to a full day of lectures after school and second not every subject would work as well as Chemistry.
I question how well suited trainers Jon and Aaron are to help those who teach other subjects or who might use vodcasting differently than prevodcasting lectures. There website is singularly focused which would make we weary if I couldn't imagine using vodcasts just as they have.
For a technology to be worthwhile in education, the benefits have to outweigh the efforts of learning how to use the technology and the time it takes to continually use it. Conferences are a fantastic way to shorten the learning curve! I can say that I think this looks great and can have many benefits, but without knowing how long it would take me each week to maintain the vodcast, I can't yet say if the cost of time will be worth it. As technologies improve and things get easier, this argument becomes less relevant.
Well, sure... if the principal wants to send me, I'll happily head out to Colorado for a few days... though in the real world, I suppose the question I would be asking is "Is there some other conference which is even more pertinent?" Unless my school were just about to bring on Vodcasting in a big way, there might well be other things that were more important...
In any case, I agree with Brianna that conferences are great ways to learn about new things. Also, I do question the "Before Vodcasting" and "With Vodcasting" average class timetables they gave in the brochure (on page 3). It is hard to imagine that a)students would have enough time to watch 40 minute vodcast lectures from each class, and b) that they would only have 10 minutes of questions from 40 minutes of lecture (actually I can believe it, because I am guessing only about 5 of them would have watched the vodcast!).
Glad to hear that all of you would be agreeable to a free trip to Colorado. I guess I'm not surprised by that. I like Mariah's idea about sending a middle and high school teacher team that could then provide training to others. From my pov this is a very military way of doing things. If you go to a conference to learn a new skill you return as the subject-matter expert and are therefore in charge of training the rest of your command on what you learned.
Brianna and Natalie make good points too. This is only worthwhile if you (within your LMC and school community) have determined that this is a technological application that you can (financially)and want to pursue. Given that scenario I think only good information and opportunities can come from a conference such as this.
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