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The media specialist: Complementing the classroom teacher
A media specialist teaches a class to tell their stories without paper, and a teacher learns how to use technology to motivate his students to read. By Karen Littlefield |
 s a media
specialist, my job is to listen to teachers' plans and to
suggest alternative materials and ideas they can use to accomplish
those plans. This allows them more choices on the materials to use for
their classroom activities. The teaching staff and I have a working
relationship that encourages the exchange of ideas and decisions that
support, enhance, and excite our learners. |
 Two students work on their book talk presentation. |
 oyle Orrell is one of many in our building who has learned to use my
brain as a source for ideas and materials. In the spring, Doyle came to the
media center asking for suggestions for ways to encourage his gifted
students to read the Oklahoma Sequoyah Honor books for 1995-96.
We discussed the problem and decided that although you can provide junior
high students with literature that they can gain knowledge from and
enjoy, this age group needs more than a guarantee that books will be
interesting to get them involved.Doyle saw computers as tools for the storage of data, not the creation of products, but he was willing to listen. We decided to put together a student multimedia presentation that would be used the following school term. We had nine weeks to accomplish this job. The student presentations would be used to introduce the Sequoyah titles to the new seventh grade class entering Kerr Junior High the following fall. |
 had been introduced to the ClarisWorks slide show format the
previous winter. I shared a couple of examples with Doyle, and he
immediately wanted to add this to his plan. The students' final product
would be slide shows created on the computer. The shows would relate
selected thoughts about or events from the books. We also decided to require
students to dub a narrative over these slides and to find or create
graphics to enrich the text presentation. These slides would be exported
from the computer to video tape to create a cassette that would be shown
to reading classes at the beginning of the next school term.Some of the students questioned our decision to have them create all of the presentations in the same slide show format. The students felt that variety would make the presentation more interesting, and they were right. We decided to give the students the option of doing a live video book talk. These were to be mixed into the slide presentations. First, students needed slide show development training and time to create a product. The training session to build ClarisWorks slide shows lasted approximately 45 minutes. For many students, it was their first encounter with an electronic medium beyond a CD encyclopedia or a word processor. They saw it as a new challenge and were excited to get started. Most of the students picked up the process very quickly and were anxious to begin. Doyle was amazed at their progress. "I can't believe they only needed 45 minutes to learn how," said Doyle. "We'll teach you!" they replied. "You're on," said Doyle. |
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Week-by-week production outline for book talk slide show Week 1 - Selection of titles to read by the students. Demonstration of slide show creation to give students a clear idea of what they are being asked to create. Week 3 - ClarisWorks slide show training by the media specialist. Discuss the use of graphics, music, live video, sound, and voice dubbing. Week 4 - Students create story boards for the slides, to be turned in to the teacher. Week 5 - Begin development on the computer of slide shows using graphics, text, and color. Week 6 - Students export all slide shows to video, book jackets are video taped, live book talks are video taped, and media specialist edits and compiles video tape. Week 7 - Dub music over the slide show sections of the video presentation. Students write voice dub narratives for their respective slides. Week 8 - Students dub narratives over their slide shows. Week 9 - Class views final product. This is the first time they actually see one another's finished work. |
 ne week
later, students began coming to the media center to create
slide shows. They worked in pairs, which made remembering the slide
creation process easier. It took approximately two weeks to get all of the
teams in to create and save their Claris slide shows to a disk.Two students, Stephen and Jennifer, are good examples of the collaborative spirit that developed throughout the class. Stephen, who is very artistic and creative, wanted to create free-drawn graphics for his slide show. Jennifer, almost a non-user of the computer, wanted to find exacting graphics. Stephen helped Jennifer select colors for both text and background, and she chose graphics from a CD. Stephen designed his own graphics, and Jennifer was a good reviewer of his work. She advised him that his story needed some concrete pictures for the immature reader to catch the meaning of his slides. Together they became an excellent team. They were willing to share and respect each other's opinions. The students were to give themselves credit on the title screens of their slides. On Stephen's and Jennifer's title screens, we found both names. They had truly learned to share, respect, and care about one another's product. The next step was to collect all of the books and begin the process of video taping the cover of each book to be incorporated into the final product. The books were each laid on a patchwork quilt and filmed for about two minutes. We also video taped the entire group of students to use at the end, as part of the credits. During the eighth week of the project, the students began bringing their slide show disks to the media center to be exported from the computer to video tape. They were to have narrative prepared to read with their slides. We quickly discovered a problem--colors change when slides are exported from computer to tape. We found that if the monitor on the computer looked really awful, the video would be good. We were learning together with new equipment, and the major issue was whether the text on the slides was readable by the viewer. |
 hose
students who prepared a video book talk planned the script and
location for their taping. It seemed like such an easy plan. They had
prepared cue cards and practiced in front of the class. The first taping
was done on a beautiful quiet day under the trees in front of our school.
Everything went smoothly until we went in to check the taping. The
microphone was dead and there was no sound. That evening I purchased a
new microphone. The next day was cloudy,
windy, and every car in our community decided to drive by the school
while we were taping. Meredith and Jessica got so tickled it took seven
tapings to get one we could use. It took another day to find time to tape
all three book talks. Latoya had decided to tape her book talk in the media
center and she wanted only her voice and a background fitting to the story.
That presented the problem of finding a suitable quiet time in the media
center and the right background. Using back light and a couple of
reference books with large pictures, we accomplished Latoya's plan. |
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Steps in completing the final, edited version: 1. Title slide show 2. Video of book cover 3. Slide Show 4. Repeat #2, #3, two times 5. Video of book cover 6. Live video book talk 7. Repeat # 2, 3, 5, 6 until all student work is incorporated 8. Video of students who participated 9. Credits slide show |
ur deadline
was nearing. All export work was done, and it was time
to edit the slides and live video into one product. That task was
accomplished using a camcorder, a video player, and a computer.
The ending credits consisted of a live video of the group of students, a
slide show with all of the students' names, the name of our school, and
the names of the adults supporting this process. Stephen became our
computer slide wiz. He created not only his slide show, but the title
and credit slides for the entire tape. After the new tape with all of the slides and live taping was put together, we dubbed music over everything except the live video. The students were now invited back to the media center to dub their narrative over their slides. This process took two days. Each pair dubbed their own voices over their creation. It was interesting to see how decision-making affected the process. Some still dubbed as individuals and read their entire script themselves. Others decided that a voice change might enhance the quality for the listener, and they gathered members of the large group and assigned readings to each to provide different voice tones as their slides came on screen. Both techniques proved effective. As a whole, the product had variety of expression, both visual and auditory. |
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he time had
come for the students to view their work as one
complete and finished product. Colin, an intelligent young man with a
wonderful sense of humor, became the source of laughter for the down
times during this work. He didn't want to read a book, but he did want to
work on the computer. Creating the slide show was easy for him, but
selecting the text to put on the slides was difficult. When it came time to
prepare an audio dub, he had great difficulty matching his voice dub script
to the time allowed for his slides. The others had matched the length of
voice dub to the length of slide very well. But not Colin. Because he was
creative enough to develop several overlays for his slides, it meant he had
to s-t-r-e-t-c-h the dub. He couldn't figure out enough words to do that,
so there were long pauses in the voice dub. As the group began to watch the presentation for the first time in its full form, they commented upon and complimented one another's work. Doyle and I both had concerns about the class's reaction to Colin's work. Would they show the same respect for his work that they did for him as a person? As his portion came on screen, the class became very quiet. No one made a sound as the overlays came on: "A boy-------searches for------his father.------He------promises to-------not go-----to war.---------HE LIES." Colin was the catalyst for reaction. Displaying his maturity, he laughed at his own work and everyone else laughed with him. Colin's work became the talk of the class, and Doyle and I learned about how students can put themselves on the line if the environment is supportive. |
 Students edit their videotapes on the computer. |
he tape has become
the pride of 16 students and two adults. The
students couldn't wait to share their work with the incoming seventh
grade classes. The hard work and creativity of these students created a
product I plan to share at the state level. Other media specialists have
asked for copies so they can try this project with
students in their own buildings. Others have asked, "How in
the world did you have time?" The answer is, you make time when
students are so excited to create. This group of students read recommended titles for young adults, shared their opinions of the books' strengths and weaknesses with their peers, and found purpose in reading the titles. The creation of a product to share with others was only the tangible outcome. In addition, these students became a close-knit group of friends, and they found concepts and ideas in the books to support concepts taught in other classes. Colin came in this fall to say that he was in American History studying the Civil War. The book he read, Bigger, by Patricia Calvert, involved the Civil War and the tragedies it caused families. His reading experience made the history unit come alive. Latoya is in a Social Issues class, and her book, Tiger Tiger Burning Bright, by Ronald Koertge, which involved care of the elderly, has prepared her to discuss other, related issues. Jessica read Earthshines, by Theresa Nelson, and she, too, has found that it's helped her in another class, when she gave her talk on AIDS in Speech Class. In the fall, the tape did the job planned. Both the seventh and eighth grade reading classes have used the tape to promote the reading of our Oklahoma Sequoyah Award books. The 16 creators of this product, who are now eighth graders, have returned to a reading class to find that their friends have great respect for the work they created last spring. I sent copies to the other junior high schools in our district and received only positive responses from both media specialists and teachers. |
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he technology
excited the students about accomplishing Doyle's goal, and the product has become a valuable
resource for other classes preparing to read these books. In addition, the
product also serves as a model and as a source of encouragement to other
teachers who might be hesitant about enhancing their teaching with
technology. From the reactions I've seen, after watching the video, both students
and teachers are motivated to attempt producing something beyond the
typical paper product. Some of the students involved in the first project have returned to create slide shows for other classes this fall. Some have even become trainers of other students. The chain reaction of this story has begun.  |
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