Selling the Plan

“What do you mean they’re testing in the LGI? I have it booked!” After spending weeks trying to work with my language arts teachers to cram a research lesson into their busy schedules, only to find that my carefully laid plans were going to be destroyed due to an unannounced scheduling conflict with standardized tests, I was at my wit's end. And then, the spark of an idea. What if I didn’t have to be at the mercy of others’ schedules? What if I could find a way to present the digital literacy curriculum in a way that would allow students to access it on their own time, and review it whenever they needed? What if I didn’t have to repeat the exact same lesson 15 times in three days? Could I find a way to present the information that would make it more relevant and engaging? Maybe I could. A hybrid class, with its combination of digital and in-person learning, might be just what I needed. So I started the research: looking at the literature, talking to colleagues, formulating a plan. The video below is a first step in proposing the idea to my district.

As with many things, my original plans for a video to promote the plan went awry quickly. I had intended to conduct video interviews of staff members and students, only to learn that the majority of my colleagues are intensely camera-shy. Rather than make the faculty uncomfortable, and turn them off of the plan before I even formally proposed it, I decided to send out a quick survey via Google Forms asking them why they think digital literacy is important. My amazing co-workers came through with exactly the information I needed (which might be due in part to the fact that I offered chocolate to anyone who participated). I also created a short survey for students and posted it on the library website (and offered more chocolate bribes, which I’m hoping the school wellness committee doesn’t get wind of), and was able to get quite a bit of input from both 7th and 8th graders. Once I had the quotes I needed, I was able to start story boarding my video, and searching for pictures that fit my message and were appropriately licensed.

I had a hard time deciding whether to use iMovie or Movie Maker to create the video. In the end, iMovie won out simply because it’s easier to carry my iPad around than my laptop. In order to get the animation for the quotes from teachers and students, I used PowerPoint to animate a slide and then exported it as a video clip. I still wish I had some interviews to use, but I’m hoping that if I can show the video to some colleagues, I might be able to convince them to speak on camera.

#hybridlearning #digitalliteracy #planning #implementation