More of my public navel gazing:

Defining The Structure

I knew I wanted the episodes to land between two and three minutes (though even that proved too long for some of y’all), to feature three words in the title, to close with my blog’s plucky little tagline in voiceover, and I wanted to shoot in a 16×9 aspect ratio (think HDTV, not your old 4×3 TV tube) because the thinner rectangle lets you balance your composition in fun ways, packing useful elements into both sides of the screen.

For example:

The structure evolved in the editing room. For better or worse, I started adding a short, silent cutaway before the final line, an effort at ratcheting up the drama before the close.

Cringeworthy

Throughout the ten episodes, I felt too somber and too portentous by nine-tenths. Nowhere is that more apparent than in the seventh episode, which I shot on two different days. One day I’m more or less my ornery, ebullient self, the other I’m kind of staring and speaking at the camera like I think I’m Jesus. I only kept a consistent, accurate tone in the ninth episode, which, of course, was the last episode with any monologue.

Oh, and the cutaway in the office episode where I try to conjure Jim Halpert just didn’t work.

Audience Interaction

I shot the behind-the-scenes episode three times, each reshoot modified by your inquiries into the process. Aside from that, the production time (averaging out at 14-ish hours per episode) prohibits the kind of post/comment/followup feedback blog posts enjoy. Once I shot an episode, only a monster incentive would reset the process.

My Least Favorite Episode

The behind-the-scenes episode, the visual core of which (the parallel shots of creating lessons and creating vodcasts) disintegrated halfway through. The last thirty seconds are particularly painful for me to watch as I murmur several passages which would’ve been better served by simple a blog post.

Favorite Flourishes

In carver’s classroom management, I mention how “I always, always took discipline personally.” I visually italicized the second “always,” with a slo-mo shot of Carver on top of the police cruiser chopping at the air, a shot you’d already seen at regular speed.

It lasts less than a second and underlines everything I believe about the strength of video.

Oh: the eyebrow in episode seven.

Also: “graham crackers and wiki hour.”

The Hardest Part About Editing Videos You’ve Spent Months Brainstorming, Writing, And Shooting

Forcing yourself to watch and listen to your story through the eyes and ears of someone totally unfamiliar with it, a hypothetical viewer. I found it really easy to cut too much, having grown deathly bored hearing myself say “My name is Dan and I like to teach.”Zadie Smith sez: write it and put it in a drawer.

The Least Watched Episode

dy/av : 007 : the motiongraphics episode, which was also my favorite, illustrating my connection to the content I have spent my professional life teaching.

The Most Watched Episode

The most watched episode was dy/av : 002 : the next-gen lecturer, the popularity of which surprised and, frankly, annoyed the hell outta me. I paced the ten episodes according to which ones I felt would play like gangbusters and which I felt would lull an audience appropriately. Turns out I have no idea what any of you people are into.

Watching it again, I’m really happy with how I edited the classroom conversation into the video, a conversation which includes so many aspects of teaching I’ll cherish long after I stop teaching.

Nielsen Ratings

My Most Flameworthy Assertion In Dean’s Interview

“Video at its best is better than writing at its best.”

Essential Vodcasting Skills

Dean asked me to define the skills essential to this vodcasting gig. There is only one. It is common to good speechwriting, good storytelling, and good teaching: increase the bandwidth. More throughput. Say more, just as clearly, with less.

For video that requires two specific skills:

1. Use the blade. Edit the dead air from your shots. Cut the passages that don’t serve the point of your video. It’s just like the delete key with blogging, only harder. (In fact, if you can’t wield the delete key adequately in your blogging, rethink video.)
2. Layer video. Is there something so special about how you look when you talk that you need to show yourself talking? Show something else – something informative, illustrative, or (for humor) contradictory – while your voice fills the background.

You can find my best throughput in the coffehouse scene from episode ten, where I split two complementary angles while at the same time layering audio from the next scene for a smooth transition.

It’s my best work of ten episodes.

Tags

dyav, autobiographical

iPod Edition

dy/av : 010 : the season finale (640 x 480)

Previous Episodes

dy/av : 009 : don’t be prez
dy/av : 008 : behind the scenes
dy/av : 007 : the motiongraphics episode
dy/av : 006 : carver’s classroom management
dy/av : 005 : how i work
dy/av : 004 : thank you, teaching
dy/av : 003 : on the office
dy/av : 002 : the next-gen lecturer
dy/av : 001 : earn the medium

Tags

dyav, classroom management, teacher, teaching, the wire, prez

References

• How To Be Interesting. Russell Davies.
• “Never assume anyone but you even cares.” Benjamin Baxter.

iPod Edition

dy/av : 009 : don’t be prez (640 x 480)

Previous Episodes

dy/av : 008 : behind the scenes
dy/av : 007 : the motiongraphics episode
dy/av : 006 : carver’s classroom management
dy/av : 005 : how i work
dy/av : 004 : thank you, teaching
dy/av : 003 : on the office
dy/av : 002 : the next-gen lecturer
dy/av : 001 : earn the medium

Motivating Question

• If we frame the teacher-student interaction as a sales pitch (just go with me for a sec) what qualities of a salesperson will repel the buyer?

You can take this any number of directions but I’ll ask you to consider for a moment the qualities of a relational teacher that aren’t also the qualities of a relational person. What I mean is, clearly, kind teachers are preferred but let’s try harder.

Tomorrow I’ll examine a teacher whose students simply don’t relate. And while his humorless, anal-retentive personality curries him few favors with the students of the Baltimore City Public Schools, one defect in particular poisons his relationships.

This defect is simple. It is potent. And, I’m convinced, it gets worse the longer you teach.

Tags

instructional design, lesson planning, creative process

iPod Edition

dy/av : 008 : behind the scenes (640 x 480)

Previous Episodes

dy/av : 007 : the motiongraphics episode
dy/av : 006 : carver’s classroom management
dy/av : 005 : how i work
dy/av : 004 : thank you, teaching
dy/av : 003 : on the office
dy/av : 002 : the next-gen lecturer
dy/av : 001 : earn the medium

The question comes up once per episode: what tools do you use?

I should have compiled a colophon or an FAQ long ago. Tomorrow I’ll take you behind the spikey-topped gates of dy/av studios, but the tour won’t cover many technical specs so I’ll use this space for the colophon:

Hardware. Canon GL2, primary camera. Canon PowerShot S800, secondary cameraa small point-and-shoot useful for shots which demand I (eg.) sniff deodorant covertly in a supermarket. PowerMacG5 (Quad Core, 2.5 GHz, 4.5 GB RAM, ridiculous). Sennheiser Microphone.

Software. Final Cut Pro, the basic sequencer. Adobe Photoshop & After Effects, the one-two punch responsible for anything especially interesting (cf. that bridge shot in the second episode; all of episode seven).

Time. approx. 12 hours per episode split across three hours pre-production (writing), two hours production (shooting), seven hours post-production (editing).

Music. Three artists, almost exclusively. Lykke Li. Jay Z’s live set at Glastonbury. Mike Skinner.

Motivating Question

The ultimate end of your classroom structures should be invisibility. eg. The best classroom management is unnoticeable. The best classroom lesson plan camouflages the planning while pushing the learning to the foreground. The extreme opposite of this is the teacher who creates a new seating chart every day.

• How have you set up your classroom routine so that the wires and pulleys disappear?

Tags

motiongraphics, math

iPod Edition

dy/av : 007 : the motiongraphics episode (640 x 480)

Previous Episodes

dy/av : 006 : carver’s classroom management
dy/av : 005 : how i work
dy/av : 004 : thank you, teaching
dy/av : 003 : on the office
dy/av : 002 : the next-gen lecturer
dy/av : 001 : earn the medium

If this arrow isn’t in the new math teacher’s quiver, it oughtta be.

How do you answer the question: when will we use [x] in real life?, where [x] is some abstract concept or, as in my case, the 97% of math that doesn’t explicitly involve “shapes.” I have witnessed and, myself, promoted answers snarky and serious, long and short. You oughtta have something.

Motivating Question

• When will we use [y] in real life?, where [y] is the abstract corners of the course you teach?

Optional Viewing

• Mount Hermon Summer Staff Slideshow 2007, a video I made last summer which is also the fulcrum on which I’ll balance my answer.

Tags

police, ethic of care, classroom management, the wire, ellis carver

iPod Edition

dy/av : 006 : carver’s classroom management (640 x 480)

References

• TMAO’s comment on the ethic of care in teaching.
• Say Hello Outside

Previous Episodes

dy/av : 005 : how i work
dy/av : 004 : thank you, teaching
dy/av : 003 : on the office
dy/av : 002 : the next-gen lecturer
dy/av : 001 : earn the medium

Yet another perspective on this elephant I call classroom management. Yet another angle on teaching through the tilt-shift lens of television. This time we have a show which deals with, um, police officers in, um, Baltimore, the title of which I don’t want to spoil. So.

Motivating Questions

1. How does a policeman’s ethic of care mirror that of the classroom teacher?

Recommended Reading

1. The Truest Thing I’ve Ever Watched Or Written. Spoiler alert, etc.

BTW: I’m on a beach called Playa Grande right now, good and married, so I invited Chris Craft, whose experience as a police officer is far from irrelevant here, aboard to handle commentary. Show him a good time.