Ohler's Production Process, Ch. 11 and 12

Chapter 11: The Media Production Process, Phase I: Developing the Story

Media production has built in assessment.  That part makes sense to me because as the author plays back the media production she naturally checks to see if she has caught what she intended.  It is more difficult for the author to keep perspective and see if the parts fit together to tell the whole story.  (Or perhaps that is me projecting what I find difficult onto this process.)  But the Ohler says, “Simply develop a checklist or rubric based on each phase…”.  Hah!  Simply?   That is not the adjective I would use in that sentence.  Using a rubric to assist with feedback is not a simple process—it is helpful I agree, and better for getting to the substance of goals, and for having students assess themselves—but it is anything but simple.  The development of the rubric itself so that it communicates the goals effectively and which communicates the distinctions between levels in a way that isn’t subjective is anything but simple. 

I must be cranky today as I read. Ohler’s next part is to make us not feel overwhelmed by the process by likening the process to baking a cake.  Some of my previous experiences with teachers saying something is easy as pie have lead me to believe that quite the opposite is true.  Teachers (especially math teachers) say with good intentions, trying to make the students relax, “This is going to be simple”.  [It would give the students more confidence to go ahead and do the process with the students, and then have them reflect on what they have done, noting the complicated process and how smart they are.  This builds confidence for next time. But I digress.] 

The 5 step process that Ohler identifies makes sense. I am just being picky about his choice of analogy and the difficulty level of the analogy.  As far as complexity of the task--is the cake being baked from scratch—or is it from a box?  He makes me doubt his own experience in baking cakes, when he identifies that “dough” must be finished in the production phase. I believe it’s called batter—but I am not a cake baking expert as I do make them from the box. Dough is for cookies and breads.  Although I take issue with this being as easy as baking a cake (as cake baking from scratch and decorating is not easy in my opinion, I do agree that the process he describes does seem fairly universal in its application to things that can be accomplished in life.

Ohler recommends a short task of introducing oneself in a short video with stills and narration, as a good first step, and to encourage students to play.  This makes sense so students have a sense that they can experiment and figure things out while talking about a subject they know, and without having a particular assignment which could constrict their abilities to let go and play.

Time:  wow!  That is a huge investment in time—one to two hours a day for a week!  (I assume he is talking about self-contained elementary classrooms here, and not secondary classrooms.)  To convince teachers that this is worthwhile in the classroom we need to indentify how a DST project for the students attends to goals they already teach in other ways or better ways or more efficient ways. More importantly, it is critical to identify the value-added is using this medium to accomplish their seemingly never-ending list of standards and content.  This is a tall order.  If all teachers started using some DST, and students became better skilled with multi-media production, this might reduce some of the time that might be required—but not much—gathering materials and editing eats up time.

Ohler points out the importance of ensuring equipment is available and working.  This reminded me about a tiny idea I have about teachers developing lesson plans for Common Core.  I have seen an online video of a science teacher describing a lesson for other teachers, stating goals, talking about how to set up a demonstration or experiments for the students, suggesting types of materials and describing what not to do for demonstration up front.  This seemed like an expeditious way for another teacher to get some information about a lesson in a different way than reading a lesson plan.  So, now I am considering what sorts of equipment I would need to provide groups of teachers while they collaboratively plan lessons, if I want them to create a short video to share with others about how to conduct the lesson they created.

Chapter 12:  The Media Production Process, Phases II-V

Much of this seemed repetitive.  I did find it useful that he provided a list of steps in production which started with finalizing all media pieces that will be part of the DST.  Then they are to focus on narration and record the story first using iMovie or Movie Maker.  After that, they add the media pieces including pictures and video, and then music and sounds, finally checking the mix of audio.  I noted that the narration was the first part actually done in telling the story and then all the other components are added in around it, in keeping with story first. 

He continues sharing nuts and bolts of production process which will be useful when actually implementing DST with students, including the fact that they will likely get tired of looking at their stories and lose interest and the ability to see when editing.

What was more intriguing to me were his thoughts about reflection after production.  He suggests asking the students to tell the story of their story-telling process.   We could ask them to identify some problems they encountered and how they learned to work through the problems (not just technology problems, but content problems as well).  This turns the teacher role into that of being a learning-coach—something we should pause and do more often in the classroom.  If I were asking students to make DST’s of their problem solving process—this would be key step in having them think about their thinking.

Another reflection he suggested was to ask teachers how DST changes their classrooms, or how it assists in making them communities of practice.  One of the hot professional development issues now is that teachers should be participating in Professional Learning Communities, and that all staff at schools should be part of those communities.  I have seen this sort of idea mandated and teachers put on teams and told to bond and become learning communities.  But I have not seen professional development that suggests learning communities could start inside the classroom, and I think teachers would find that a valuable idea.  If teachers were able to build communities of practice inside their classrooms, then PLCs outside of their classrooms might become extensions, just another place to analyze what is going on inside the classroom.