ALT's Trip to NYC 12/008 Part TWO

This is a video I made LAST WINTER for 13 classes of junior high school students in Izumo City, Shimane Prefecture, Japan. I tried to show them a little bit about myself and about New York, in the context of my trip home for winter holidays. The video was over 10 minutes, so I have cut it in half for YouTube. The students definitely enjoyed seeing the film in JANUARY 2009, though admittedly they enjoy seeing any film in class. :)

If you make a movie, you can then give an oral or written quiz about your film, or make it into a game, which is what I did. For example, I asked "How many Santas were in the film?" and "What does Mark's tattoo say?" (Most of the questions were multiple choice.

This video was a learning experience in several ways. Here is my advice when making videos for students: (1) Don't let the videos get too long, otherwise students will get bored [I think 10 minutes or less is a good length]; (2) If you use images, make sure they are "simple images" that can be seen and recognized by students even on crappy TV's or projector screens in overly sunny classrooms, etc.; (3) Use photos with good contrast so that they can still be seen and recognized under adverse viewing conditions; (4) your school might give you a Japanese DVD player for you to play your iMovie film; chances are that you won't be familiar with the remote control and the DVD player will (improperly) adjust the aspect of your video, thus cutting off the bottom and top of the image; so don't put any critical info or images at the far top or bottom, to preserve flexibility, in case this happens; (4) create good audio by recording spoken voices in quiet spaces or with good mics (note my discussion of my Brooklyn apartment as an example of a too-long, too-complicated, too-noisy on-camera talk); (5) create good audio by adjusting levels so that all parts of the film can be played straight through without significant volume adjustments; (6) create good audio by not playing your "soundtrack" music too loud over spoken words you want your students to be able to hear; (7) know what you want to record when you get your friends and family in front of your camera, so that they don't use words or accents your students cannot possibly understand; (8) use title cards to facilitate the language experience for your students (such as showing a video clip and then showing the words on a title card to reinforce the experience).

IMPORTANT IMOVIE NOTE: If you're using iMOVE 6 (HD) like me, NEVER render your photos from within iMovie. This will RUIN your photos by significantly lowering their resolution. They will look like crap. Instead, if you need to render for the purposes of making a DVD, you can render the materials from within iDVD. I am not an expert on this topic, but it's discussed at length on Apple's message boards. See for example:
http://discussions.apple.com/forum.js...
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.j...

The music in this video is employed as "FAIR USE" for educational purposes. I am in no way claiming rights to use this music for any other benefit or profit. I am providing this film on my YouTube channel so that other ALT or JET, etc., teachers in Japan may see what can be done with a handheld video camera and iMovie, to entertain and educate the students.

Peace to all and best of luck in bridging the gap between cultures. We are all one, some of us just don't know it yet. :()

Part ２ of 2 Music:
RADl0HEAD, "AlRBAG";
Peter BJ0RN and J0HN, "Y0UNG F0LKS"....

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Izumo
• Shimane
• Japan
• education
• English
• Japanese
• learn
• ALT
• JET
• Programme
• Program
• AEON
• Interac
• Eigo
• Nihongo
• 英語
• 日本語

[voggvogg]

Also, re J Pop, I def agree. But I only use music I like and I dislike most J Pop. Still, I did find some I liked and I made sure to showcase it in my jiko shokai video (Radwimps, Angeli Aki, Greeeen). Further to your point, putting anything Miyazaki in a film will make young kids go nuts (in a good way).

[voggvogg]

I agree, Myargonauts. Another reason to keep this type of film under 10 minutes is that it makes the film more useful to the teachers, i.e., it will fit into more class lessons, and thus you'll get to use it more often. My 9.9 minute jiko shokai video (also on YouTube) was shown in around 30 classes!

[myargonauts]

and if I can make one more suggestion - while it's cool to use your own fav music, and expose the kids to new tunes, if you sprinkle some J-pop that they know into the song mix, then some will listen/pay attention simply to hear music they know

[myargonauts]

I think the 10 min YT limit is a good time limit in general - the kids tend to lose interest in anything longer, unless it's a movie with them in it - like pics of them for graduation, etc.