Videos and the Practice of Motorcycle Maintenance
1. Earlier this year, I took my motorcycle in to get the oil changed. While waiting, I got into a conversation with the guy sitting next to me, who was extolling the virtues of a rigorous academic education with focus on Higher Education. I asked him how long he had been waiting for his motorcycle to get fixed. He replied three months, because the shop did not have enough mechanics.
2. At a House Mortgage Closing (mild entertainment for an evening) the loan officer (during a break) was going on about how exciting it was that Loudoun kids could make videos. I let her go on, then asked her what the videos were. She replied, oh, just stuff thrown together. I asked her what the kids seemed to have learn. *crickets* I then asked her, of all the things we were doing that night, how would that skill have helped her?
I thought about these situations during Jim Harmon’s presentation of the classrooms. Five students and a teacher (right….) were looking at a picture of an owl-house (Thanks Marnie) on an iPad. It reminded me of when I was a small lad and wanted to build a bird house. So I went to the library (internet) used the card catalog to get a book (Google) pulled out a notebook and made sketches (Google) found a milk carton and a knife and made one. (….)
Great points and comparisons
Love your tongue-in-cheek analysis (somehow I just knew I would enjoy a good chuckle and a thought if I checked out your blog). I’ve been working hard to get staff to make stronger academic value part of video projects, something that it took me several years to do as a teacher. It’s a bit of an uphill climb, as they tend to view video creation as ‘dessert’ on top of instruction. We’ve been exploring SAM-R as a way to help get them to understand and apply this so that video might become of stronger academic value. Time will tell… I love the birdhouse explanation…