Teach to the problems, not to the text. --E. Kim Nebeuts
Dramatic Literature and Playscript Analysis are the first to go cyber. Next the new course I am developing as a core class for BFA in Theatre -- Virtual Theatre.
Webpages is one of the aspects of using new technology for teaching. Four years ago my students were complaining about the class requirements to use Internet and email, not anymore. Some still resist the idea of posting their writing assignments on the web. Nothing could be done about it, my friends, that's the way to do it now. Get used to it! There is more ahead!
One way or another, all my pages are noting but "teaching"...
I teach twenty years in US and still do not know if the Soviet system was better or not. Back in Moscow they paid me to study and grading was making sense to measure the "work"... I was happy wiht the American way; the students pay, i.e. they want to learn! Who cares for exams? I am in classroom to help them to learn... Well...
Originally, the pages were for myself only. What I need to remember to say in class, the points, the quotes and etc.
But it's "Private in Public" -- the Internet! I have to ad the links, the navigation, and a lot of things, which are for "others", not me. My students. And -- the cyber-students.
... I knew that I need this page, but I didn't know it will be not easy to build it. I didn't know that the web will make teaching more difficult. Every time I teach class, it looks like the first time.
I revise the content, I make the new pages, I change the order...
Am I a better teacher now?
It was difficult to bring the class togethr, to get all on "one page"... The cyber-audience is much more diverse, and I have to lay out the pages in such a way that they could be of use for a begginer and a professional. Is it possible?
More pages, different levels. New directories and sub-directories.
More work.
* an online module is some type of 'thing' you use in a class that the students look at on the Internet (be it a website, an online tutorial, etc) either in class or as a homework.
* hybrid is something that is done both face-to-face (f2f) and online - it is a mixture.
Film and food are subjects difficult for analysis. We enjoy, like it or don't -- movies are motion pictures, you know, they never stop. No time for reflections, no time for anything.... film is this thing-in-itself. We don't see, we watch. You have to break this natural habit of consumption, if you want to notice the language. You have to get behind the screen to the machine of film.
Yes, the rules of this language have the known elements, grammar, structure of sentences, vocabulary etc. -- and yet it's unlike any other linguistic organization. I suspect we are still at the very beginning of the evolution of this medium and do not know its developed forms.
To teach film without having a fully discovered theory is like teaching physics without basic laws. The paradox is that we are using it, we "speak" it like children without knowing how we do it. That's why Film is Art. But once again, a strange art. Why so? Because it is a technology-rich based art. Nothing in the traditional arts comes close to film in its complexity of technological means. Alas, it gets more complicated every day. Tomorrow's digital revolution will change the foundation of film-making.
That's why I consider "Film Studies" as a discipline limited to the basics, mechanics, elementary principles -- this attitude helps me to handle "the culture shock" entering this evolving new universe.
ONLINE:
Create Lessons (webpages)
Create Tests and Quizzes (htmlgear + )
Use the Forum area, netlinks, class polls, surveys and other student activities (closed webpages)
How to follow student progress and record student work
How to use the Grade book ()
How to use the File Sharing area
Use Student Feedback tools (eGroups)
Make use of Instructor Controls and other Classroom settings
and much more.....
Notes
From ASTR list :
-- Yet I am a prospective graduate student looking for a program... and I know for a fact that I am not alone. Are you going to listen to the customer or not?
With all due respect, Kristan, you are not a customer. This is not Walmart. I do not wear a badge and direct you toward the Pedagogy aisle and tell you to have 'a nice day.' Learning is not consuming, nor buying and to view a student as a 'customer' is to make education merely a process of showing up and paying up. I fight this attitude every day and will continue to do so.
If you disagree with this, please stop looking for a university and go directly to your nearest large independent bookstore. Consume what they have to sell. If they displease you, remind them that you are a customer and that your 'needs' are their business. That is as it should be.
If a University becomes a 'store' catering to 'customers' and selling them 'knowledge' then we've allowed one of the last decent things to be defiled by consumerism and we should all be ashamed.
"We are born weak, we need strength; helpless, we need aid; foolish, we need reason. All that we lack at birth, all that we need when we come to man's estate, is the gift of education." -- Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778)
Here, here! What we are = what we know. The secret is how to teach yourself. This is what I try to learn...
[ sample from teachwithmovies.org for HS ]
Discussion Questions:
What was the theme of this film? What were the film makers trying to tell us? Were they successful? Justify your answer.
Did you learn anything from this movie? What was it?
Was there something you didn't understand about the movie?
What did you like best about the movie? Why?
Select an action performed by one of the characters in the film and explain why the character took that action. What motivated him or her? What did this motivation have to do with the theme of the film?
Who was your favorite character in the movie? Why?
Who was your least favorite character in the movie? Why?
Describe the use of color in the film? Did it advance the emotions the film makers were trying to evoke? How would you have used color in the movie?
Analyze the use of music in the movie. Did it enhance the story that the film makers were trying to tell? How would you have used music in this movie?
Did all of the events portrayed in the film ring true? Describe the scenes that you found especially accurate. Which sequences didn't seem to match reality? Why?
What was the structure of the story told by the movie?
How did the editing of the film advance the story that the film makers were trying to tell? Explain how?
Projects:
Students can be asked to write an essay on any of the discussion questions described above.
The class can be asked to take positions on and to debate any of the discussion questions.
Change the ending of the film. (This can be done by the teacher describing a new ending or permitting the class or different groups of students to choose their own ending.) Break the class into groups to create a story board or a script of an altered version of the film accommodating the new ending, if necessary, changing the order of the scenes.
Bibliography: Classroom Cinema, by Richard A. Maynard, 1977, Teachers College Press, New York
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blog: anatoly-film
Film and food are subjects difficult for analysis. We enjoy, like it or don't -- movies are motion pictures, you know, they never stop. No time for reflections, no time for anything.... film is this thing-in-itself. We don't see, we watch. You have to break this natural habit of consumption, if you want to notice the language. You have to get behind the screen to the machine of film.
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