A Great Way to Teach and to Learn!!!

My video, entitled Our Warm Earth, deals with issues that face all of us. In it I talk about the earth’s perfect distance from the sun, the average temperatures of Venus, Earth, and Mars, and what we need to do to keep our earth’s ecology healthy.
I used various tools to create this movie. First, I drew several pictures/illustrations that appropriately depict earth’s distance from the sun and temperature. Another tool I used was my video camera. I filmed a gas tank (depicting the need to be fuel efficient drivers), an electrical outlet (depicting the need use less electricity), and a few pictures of easily recycled items. In addition, I used pictures downloaded from the internet to supplement my video. Most importantly, I utilized Windows Movie Maker. Movie Maker allowed me to blend together the internet pictures, original pictures, and videos in order to create a film. I also employed a headset and microphone for use in narrating my movie.

Although this was a tricky assignment, I feel that now that I understand how to do it, I would love to teach my future students how to make their own movies. There are literally endless ways students can learn by watching and creating original movies. The information they gather will be their own. They will be able to put it all together and organize it according to how they see fit. Such a hands-on task will surely be beneficial and the educational benefits derived will be long lasting! Additionally, parents can join their child in creating movie projects. It would be great to see several parents and children work as teams on specific projects.

I would also love to see students create movies as part of their science fair projects. Instead of the usual flat board, I would encourage students to put their findings, pictures, charts, and anything else into video and picture format and create a movie! In fact, I believe that any subject can be explored thoroughly by means of a creative original movie-I hope to use this tool regularly in my future classroom!