Many good points, especially about not using the textbooks. I’m always being asked about what textbook I use, and I have to say, none. Oh, I have one marketing textbook I occasionally use, just because I think I have to, but there is waaaaay too much good stuff just out there, in the world, waiting for me to use. Carrying a camera has become a new thing for me, but I’m getting better at it.

As for your final shot, of the bridge, looks like one at Mount Hermon, a favorite of mine.

This is bang on. I just sent this off to a group of Math teachers who are exploring assessment, outcomes, the whole sha-bang really.

As you stated in your first vodcast, you can do things in this medium, you can’t replicate in others. This is the power. But indeed keeping it concise, engaging and meaningful is the challenge. Well done my friend. You’re a rock star.

Incredibly awesome final shot of the bridge. When the camera slides past you and the white lines move into place, that’s some seriously cool action there. Dan, I don’t know what to say. But when I do figure it out, I’ll put something together. These are inspiring and make me want to quit teaching English.

That’s so sweet. The power of a moving picture is awesome – I’ve had so many times I wished I could pull a pic out of a book and spin it round, doodle about… What software do you use?

Wow. Incredible. I hope that many math departments show this video at before school meetings this year. What great way to start the discussion of how to re-imagine teaching math.

Watching your video made me feel that we are possibly at the tipping point in math education that we might be able to lift ourselves off the bottom of the barrel in terms of student interest and engagement. I don’t know which subject we can get a head of but I am interested in getting us there.

A much needed pick me up.

Thanks,

Matt

Thanks for a great explanation of engaging teaching strategies! I’m going to pass this along to all the teachers I know. Great post!

Oh, and one other thing: you should *totally* go with the mustache look.

Hello, Dan,

RE: “I’ll know exactly where someone’s gonna box my ears. The only question is who.”

For the record, I was speaking in all sincerity — it’s a great look — kind of like Hanson reaching puberty :)

Glad to be predictable, and to rise to the (generously proferred) bait. Feel free to respond with old/bald jokes.

RE: “what would you add to the “paper, voice, projector” trichotomy”

A mobile-friendly newsletter subscription — select the key graphics from a lesson, and the lead questions — make those available for signup — many cell phones can accept messages via email — 1112223333@cellplangateway.com — wikipedia has a pretty good breakdown of these numbers.

Alternately, grab a site with a mobile-friendly theme that can be browsed with a mobile device. Drupal has mobile friendly themes, and I suspect WordPress does as well.

And once your lessons/content is online, it can be access by a good old-fashioned computer.

You’re already including an iPod friendly format, which is the other element I would suggest.

You’re not going for 100% adoption here — no system in the world has 100% adoption — but by leveraging the ability of digital media to fit into multiple distribution channels, you are creating multiple points of entry for your students — and as I see it, multiple points of entry, using hardware they are already carrying, creates learning opportunities.

RE: “the limiting factor in digital delivery is my students’ computing profile, which is terrible, and nothing like the digital immigration officials would have me believe.”

Absolutely. While there are stunning exceptions, this corresponds with my experience as well.

Out. Stand. Ing.

This is wonderful! Your production is better than some pros I know. I envision you finding a way to share your talent with more than just 100 kids a year.

Not to brag, but your parabola-bridge reminded me of a precalc project my students did this year. They were invited to look for functions around them, take a picture, then we superimposed functions over the pictures in sketchpad.

http://www.flickr.com/groups/781713@N23/

Only 10 photos are public (even though they all swear they made them public…flickr often acts unexpectedly…trying picasa web albums next year), but if you’d like to see the other 55, just send a request to join the group.

Thanks for that Dan, it’s good, it helped. A few questions:

– How often do you find yourself using your video-editing skills in class?

– How difficult do you think they are to learn at the moment?

– How easy do you think this kind of thing could become in the future… within reach of your ‘common’ teacher, or are custom-made videos always going to be the preserve of a few?

Fabulous! I look forward to see more. A question: What software do you use to draw the parabol below the bridge?

Thank you and Bravo!

“Is this w/in reach of the common teacher?”

No.

This is not the work of a ‘common’ teacher.

It’s like that moment when I asked a professor, ‘Hey, do you think anyone can write a work like Ulysses?’

Or when I listened to Rush for the first time and asked, ‘Hey, do you think anyone can drum like that guy?’

Or after I…

Oh, you get the point.

Innate skill + practice/time = results

Good stuff, Dan

Also, all the practical applications of math/video is slowly making me want to go to the dark side and become a math teacher.

Any thoughts on integrating the video/pics into the history curriculum?

Dan –

I’d like to see something along the lines of your series on presentations from way back — perhaps just starting with your workflow. From concept and storyboarding, to doing the actual shooting, to putting it all together.

If you’re so inclined, of course…

This.is.awesome. What a great, succinct, well presented, practical, straightforward and important video you have created!

Late to the show (although that gives me time to peruse the comments, nodding my head up and down a great deal with each of their feedback/compliments).

Love the final shot, just as Todd (5) stated. Seriously smooth slide from over your shoulder.

Also deeply respect this comment you made, Dan: feeling a bit ripped apart by the distance between Job & Hobby. Managing that distance (so to speak) is perhaps what will be a significant part of your gift back to this larger community of folks learning by every one of your video breadcrumb trails.

Also believe that Scott E. (20) is saying something many of us can agree with re: a behind-the-scenes Vimeo channel. I’m about ready to dive into digital storytelling/filmmaking with a colleague (who gets the editing side of things, while I run the English class side of the game) at school this fall. We just installed a ceiling projector that rocks even with all the lights on and the windows wide open. Every teaser you toss out there will be major mind-candy for me this summer and beyond. Thanks in advance, fella!

Good on Ken (32) for pointing out the elephant in the room. YouTube/Vimeo is democratic. Talent/vision is not. Anyone can upload. Dan, on the other hand, shows that only a few can take concept, vision, and execution into the editing ‘studio’ and put out something that inspires, even when it ends with a parabolic punchline. While education in general and Web 2.0 for the most part proclaims this a party that embraces all, talent wins out in the end. Period. Dan is a podium kind of guy. I’m comfy with that. My classroom vids will be stick figure in comparison, but I’m good/cozy with that. On the other hand, I expect Dan to be Robert Redford with eyes on the homerun fence, even if the blogosphere draws blood on occasion along the way.

Oh, and thinking that Scott E (36) has a good point re: prezo workflow and process behind the scene vids when time allows on your end after the thematic summer episodes are in the bag.

While you’re swimming in compliments, happy to add my drop in the bucket. Good stuff. Now, if only I can get my stick figures to re-form into near-claymation ‘expertise’ thanks to your vid design breadcrumbs, I’ll be a happy classroom teacher this fall.

Yes, a good reprise, Dan. Me more as a learner and fan this time around, however.

As for your thoughts about your previous response to Alex above, in some ways I think what you said needs to be said. Talent is talent, or at least vision is vision. Tools are on every shelf but few of us can build the elegantly designed and timeless abode, no? But I also grasp what you’re wrestling with in terms of your comment being unresolved. Your last comment above seems to have done real justice to what you had meant to say beyond the first swing. And I agree once again.

Cheaply paraphrasing your own words above, Dan, is that the deep burden you spoke about above re: any proposed/future how-to/behind-the-scenes series that may evolve is…

…less about technique, tools, etc…

…and much more about design/storytelling.

With that said, the ‘story’ of your video ‘process’ — a thinking aloud or barnappie process made transparent, perhaps — may be the great gift you can offer others.

As you said, it is about literacies.

That means telling stories. Camp fires and all. And sometimes stories are messy and in-process and unresolved, as much as they can be tightly edited and carefully sewn together and delightfully transitioned scene to scene.

BTW, the “do you know how to speak film?” Q you posed above was one of the many gems in your follow-up comment.

I loved — a few years back — teaching architecture, design, & planning to urban high school kids. I never imagined that 9of10would pursue those as formal fields in their futures, but I did believe that every one of them could learn to think, see, speak, problem solve, and imagine like a designer…no matter the field or life path they entered.

Same with your vids/lessons, Dan. Help all of us think/see/feel/speak the language of film (et al), and the rest will take over in ways none of us can imagine.

***

Psst…

…but I’d still love to get some shotting/editing tutorials from you behind the scenes so I don’t look like such an a**clown to my kiddos this coming fall when I start spinning my D.I.Y. film reel as the classroom lights begin to dim.

Can I put you on retainer via Skype or cell?

Really enjoyed this. It’s amazing how much more is going on in education than in the youth sector here in the Uk in terms of how to’s and reflections on how to use new tech to make more interesting discussions etc. Thanks for the ideas.