Standards and More

Today was a day of ups and downs emotionally. Friends who loaned me their digital video camera burned Cds (one a DVD, one a DVD Data Disc with uncompressed MP files) of my video. They are PC users and we are Mac users. Their camera had not come with an i.LINK cable that would allow me to load the video directly to my computer. We all thought one of the discs would enable me to upload the video to iMovie, so that I could edit it into clips to add to my text about vegetarianism. But when I tried I got audio only, no picture. We knew the images were there, or rather that I had remembered to remove the lens cap, because we had played the DVD in our player and viewed the interview on our t.v. I started to throw in the towel on the whole final product, but first I put out calls to two avid Mac techy types. No one was home, who works on Saturdays, right? My cousin-in-law called and then emailed ideas tonight. One it would have been easiest to buy an i.LINK cable (though, friends with camera said they didn't think the camera had the right port) or two, add a plug-in to Quick Time that would allow it to read the Mpeg 2 files. They both cost basically the same. So tomorrow will try one or both to solve problem.

Students doing this at school may or may not have these equipment woes. At our elementary school, we have a Mac lab and cameras and my daughter has used these to create school movies. Schools are able to write grants or to have teachers participate in special programs that award equipment to schools.

Standards

I consulted the Indiana Health Education Standards and chose the following as suitable to my topic and project. The references to health standards in my reading of Chapter 2 in Information Power: Building Partnerships for Learning, ALA,1998 (see examples of Content-Area Standards), got me to thinking how they fit with my information inquiry.

Standard 2-Students will demonstrate ability to access and evaluate health information, products and services.

Standard 4-Students will demonstrate the ability to analyze the influence of family, culture, peers, community, media and technology on health and health behaviors.

Standard 6-Students will demonstrate ability to implement decision making and goal setting skills to enhance health.

Standard 7-Students will demonstrate ability to advocate for personal, family and community health.

I included these in that a similar project might be assigned in a health science class. Standard 2, I also see as looking at determining what "is quality information and what's junk?" (Lamb, Wiggling email) in websites with health information, that a student might consult. See figure 6.6: Questions Used to Evaluate Web Sites in Inquiry Learning through Librarian-Teacher Partnerships by Violet H. Harada and Joan M. Yoshina. This table on page 90, with its criteria and questions, is a useful tool for students.

I also selected a standard from 8th grade English/Language Arts.

Standard 4-Parts of Writing Process: Students discuss, list and graphically organize writing ideas.

This would apply to students projects that include group discussions, emails or blogs and outlining and graphic organizers, like concept maps.

And lastly, I selected a standard from Indiana Standards for Technology Education.

Standard 12-Select the appropriate devices and systems to meet personal and societal needs.

Definitely important, see first paragraph of this blog. I chose this particular format for my final product, because I thought it would be appealing to the age group
my topic is addressing. Teens. Students creating a similar project would want to make peers aware of this imformation and would want to create and share a product that would ultimately educate others. Whether video, PowerPoint or pamphlet. Hoping that I'll still be able to create the final product I have envisioned.