series – Page 20

What Can You Do With This: License Plates

By Dan Meyer • October 4, 2008 • 34 Comments

A Costa Rican License Plate

An American License Plate

What Can You Do With This?

See the pilot for instructions. Click each thumbnail for the high-res still. See you in the comments.

What Can You Do With This: Pilot

By Dan Meyer • October 4, 2008 • 16 Comments

My take on digital media in the classroom, the next-gen lecturer, went ultra-viral last summer, tripling up on Did You Know?, and making Sir Ken Robinson wish he never paid attention to his YouTube stats, etc.

Responding to demand, I’d like to serialize the video into an ongoing series called What Can You Do With This?, the structure of which will go like this:

I will post a digital photo or some digital video. I will do this without elaboration.
We will take to the comments and angle ourselves at the best possible use of that media in a classroom setting, which use, I predict, will be superior to the one I originally imagined.

At the very least, we will find in these (high-res, DRM-free) media a better way to introduce material than whatever “real world” contrivance your textbook recommends. At best, we will train our eyes to find our content areas in the world around us, becoming better teachers in the process.

dy/av post-mortem

By Dan Meyer • August 29, 2008 • 4 Comments

Dean Shareski posted an interview over at his Ideas and Thoughts covering my summer-long vodcasting series, dy/av. Since the guy is like Lesley Stahl with a Skype mic, I went back through the archives to prep myself. I cringed at moments I didn’t expect and found some moments more durable than others.

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:

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.)
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.