Sunday June 11, 2006
Video Production in Service Learning
Video production combined with service learning projects is increasing in schools. Some school systems require high school students to participate in service learning. Students not only acquire new skills surrounding video production, they also learn about the day-to-day operation of non-profit agencies. At the end of the project, most students feel good about the video skills they have learned, but feel even better about having contributed a useful promotion tool to a worthy organization.
In the article, Filming Compassion by Janet Bremer and Marilyn Clark, students at Cincinnati Hills Christian Academy High School must complete 120 hours of service work in order to graduate. Jabet Bremer and Marilyn Clark worked together to include service learning in a video production class. Non-profit organizations were contacted and asked if they would like to participate in this project, knowing that the video would become the property of their organization to use as they needed. From there, students were paired and given phone numbers to contact the organization to which they were assigned. The students met with the agencies and developed a plan for the video. Ideas were used to create a storyboard before shooting the video. Once the video was partially completed, students met with the agency to show staff members the footage and to receive feedback. Videos were edited with the help of peers and volunteers. The videos were assessed using a rubric created expressly for this project
While this article is geared toward using video production in high schools, I can modify parts of it to work at the elementary level. Our school is involved in service projects such as helping the Food Bank of NC and Pennies for Heaven. Creating a video to involve more student and parent participation is one idea. Creating a video for either agency to use is another idea. Let's take a look at the first idea. Our school has 1125 students and communication can be difficult. I would like to see a group of students (not sure yet how they would be selected) visit the local Food Bank with a teacher or an adult and video volunteers that work there. The volunteers could explain why there is such a thing as a food bank, how food is donated, how it is stored and where it goes. I envision a video walk through the Food Bank as the volunteer talks. Once this is completed, the students would follow the same steps as mentioned in the article: share the video clip with peers and edit. Once that stage is complete, students would meet with the media specialist to schedule a time to show this video to the whole school. Two students could be "TV announcers" and introduce the service project and video. To involve the arts, an art class could design a flyer to be sent home with information and collection dates. During the collection times, students could video students and parents as they bring in donations and even do a few quick interviews. A way to wrap up the service project would be to show the video clip of interviews and end with a clip of all the "goods" collected and leaving the school for the Food Bank. I believe video clips shown school wide will make everyone feel a part of this and possibly increase the number of donations. Of course, this will take time and planning, but will be bring the whole school together for a good cause.
Posted at 04:54PM Jun 11, 2006 by ALLEN, LYNNE in General | Comments[0]
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