Report

“Perkim”

 

Educational dimensions of the videos

 

The educational goals of this video are vocabulary (wheel, door handle, bittern, knitting, cutlery and canteen). The educational purposes were demonstrated, written and pronounced. The pupils have passive role while watching this video because there are no activating exercises or introduction.  In this video the pedagogical method is learning words. This video is suitable for 4th to 5th grade. 

 

Technical dimensions of the videos

 

Video image was very bad quality and sound of pronunciation has bad audibility but the music sounds good. The pronunciation must be louder and the video should be clearer and colored.  

 

Dimensions concerning “English as a second language”

 

Video title is "perkim", but it doesn’t mean nothing in English. So the title should be in English. We don’t know what is the meaning or theme of this video.  It might be better if there were phonetic symbols. There wasn’t any comment about target group, so we can only imagine. There wasn’t one main theme. We don’t understand the topic theme. What was the point of the character? But the music was good. The background seems quite good, because it was took part in real life places. 

 

 

“Hobbies”

 

Educational dimensions of the video

 

The educational goals in this video are to teach English. The video is a presentation of different English verbs and examples of the verbs in a sentence.  The students are presentation to the verbs, the pronunciation of the word and they also see the verb used in a context. The pupils can be both active and passive when they are watching the video. They can be seated in a chair and just watch the movie or the teacher can stop the video after every example and maybe repeat and explain. The teacher can also make it a little more exiting and funny by making the pupils emulate the illustrations. Every “verb” starts with an illustration. Then a star appears and spells the word. Afterwards the illustration continues. After about ten seconds the illustration stops and three boxes shows up. The first box with the word, he second box with the pronunciation and the third box with an example of the word in a sentence.  I think that this video will fit in 4-5th. grade. It can be used to presentation verbs to the pupils.

 

Technical dimensions of the video

 

The video contains “living pictures”/movies, which illustrate the English word/sentence. These illustrations contain music. They use “speak over” to focus the audience on the English word or sentence. At the same time the music stops. So the instructors show lots of different technical skills.  We don’t know how we could improve the video technical. Like most of the videos in this task it is clear there are not “moviemakers”, so  the video contains some great technical skills.

 

Dimensions concerning “English as a second language”

 

There are no misuses of English in the video. The music fits the illustrations. For example the illustration “To take pictures”,  where Pokerface is playing. Characters look like pupils, which is great. The characters match the target group of the video. The location is at a school and outside a school. 

 

“Cooking lesson”

 

Educational dimensions of the video

 

The educational goals of this video are to learn how to make pancakes and salad. The video presents the ingredients by writing, speaking and they are showing phonetics. The speaking and the phonetics don’t fit perfectly together, there are some pronunciation mistakes. The pupils are going to be very passive when they are watching the video, but they will be active when they got a chance to try it out by themselves. When the pupils are watching the video, they can be active by repeat after the speaker in the video. The pupils are learning by watching and listening. This video will fit in 5th to 6th grade, because in Norwegian schools the pupils are beginning with home economics in 5th or 6th grade. 

 

Technical dimensions of the video

 

The technical qualities of the video are pretty good, and it’s good how they mix speaking, writing and the phonetics. We think the pronunciation should be better; it should be concord between the phonetics and the pronunciation.  

 

Dimensions concerning "English as a second language"

 

They are saying every letters in the words, but some of them are non-sound letters. Example: Cooking lesson, in cooking there should not be so much emphasis on the letter g. We think they could have made a better setting, so the pupils could she in what way they can use it. Maybe they could have a picture of all the ingredients, so the pupils get an overview.

 

 

 

 Malin and Mette likes video “Cooking lesson” best, because the pupils can see how to make pancakes and salad, and then it is easier for them to do it afterwards. 

 

 

Kristian likes video “hobbies” the most, because of the opportunities it gives the teacher. I would (as a teacher) make the pupils mimic the actors and actually make the different movements.

 

Liza and Merily likes both  “Hobbies” and “Cooking lesson” because they were better quality and more specific subject and learning purpose than “Perkim”

Lovely rabbit family :)

This is educational video about kitchen vocabulary. It´s created by Maarja, Laura and Merily!

Negative and positive side to playing ICT games

Parents and teachers should be aware how video games can influence youngsters, both in negative and in positive way. As two-thirds of children are playing computer games, they present a good tool how to communicate with certain age children and as well how to direct them. However most games contain violent content and are inappropriate for learning.  

Computer games are played by two-thirds of children and young people aged 6-17. Few children and young people have no means of playing computer games at home. However, nearly one in five boys and two in five girls have access to such equipment but say they do not play computer games or video games in their leisure time. Among game-players, most play occasionally for short time, although one in five – especially boys, especially working-class children - plays regularly for substantial amounts of time (Livingstone 2008:62).

Computer games can be good for children. Young people today need more than just do basic mathematics and can read basic texts.  Young children today are learning more about art, design, and technology from their video games than they are from our technologically impoverished schools.  Young people today need to learn innovative thinking and high-tech skills in science and engineering to get high-paying jobs. Video games can change education because computers now make it possible to learn on a massive scale by doing the things that people do in the world outside of school (Shaffer 2006:2).  Video games promote hand-eye coordination, visual scanning, auditory discriminations, and spatial skills. Some studies have found that playing video games can improve children´s visual attention, spatial iconic skills, computer literacy and to help improve academic performance. Durkin and Barber (2002) found that sixteen-years-olds who play computers game scored better than did peers who never played computers game on several measures, including positive school engagement, positive mental health, self-concept, friendship network, and activity involvement (Johnson, Christie &  Wardle 2005:354).  If children are playing video games in such a way as to learn actively and critically, then they are: learning to experience the world in a new way, developing resources for future learning and problem solving, learning how to think about semiotic domains as design spaces that engage and manipulate people in certain ways and, in turn, help create certain relationships in society among people and groups of people, some of which have important for social justice (Gee 2007:37-38).

On the negative side, a host of studies have found relationships between playing video games, particularly those with violent content, and unhealthy outcomes. Most video games (89 percent) contained violent content. Killing is almost always presented as justified, sending the message that violence was an acceptable way. Second, Heintz-Knowles and Henderson also found that the video games tend to reinforce gender stereotypes. Female characters accounted for only 16 percent of all characters, and these few females also were likely to scream and wear revealing clothing. Males were more likely to engage in physical aggression. Video games also contain very little racial diversity. Nearly all heroes were white; African Americans and Latinos were typically athletes. Asians and Pacific Islanders were usually wrestlers or fighters (Johnson, Christie & Wardle 2005:354). 

As we have evidenced computer games can have positive sides, unfortunately we cannot designate or control the content of all the games therefore many games portray negative things we wouldn’t want to teach to our children. Moreover computerised socialization is slowly killing human to human socializing, replacing it with social network on line. We cannot debate that computer games are excellent means to teach teenagers in stages where they absorb all new on the other hand we cannot forget the dangers that lie within the games.

REFERENCES

Gee, P.J. (2007). What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy. England: Palgrave Macmillan

 Livingstone, S. (2008). Young people and new media. London: SAGE Publication Ltd.

Johnson, J. E., Christie, J.F., Wardle, F. (2005). Play, development, and early education. United State of America: Pearson Education, Inc.

Shaffer, W.D. (2006). How computer games help children learn. England: Palgrave Macmillan.

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CONNECTED

Our family had a computer for the first time when I was about 8 years old. Now I could not even imagine the life without the computer because it is a part of every day life which makes communication so much easier. Although, sometimes I think that the quality of the life would be better without one, then I would have more time to study and read.

I use information technology every day. I use different social webpages and sometimes even some forums. I personally prefer to read news from the regular newspaper and not from the web. Of course every day I check my e-mails, sometimes I feel that I am adicted to checking the e-mails. After a short period I refresh my e-mail account to see if there are any new e-mails for me.

I am able to use the most common application programs like Power Point, Word, Paint, Publisher and Movie maker. I have hard time to us Excel because I don’t have experiences of using the formulas.

I wish I would know how to program different things, for example  to create the homepages. Also, I would like to learn different picture and video editing programs. Video editing  would be great to know, then I would edit my own home videos, cut the unneccessary clips, add the music backgrounds and add the names.  As a teacher I would like to use the different information technology and websites to make the class lessons more intresting and to offer more study methods.



Looking for myself!

HELLO! My name is Merily and I am in my early 20´s.  I was born and raised in Estonia. I am a student at Haapsalu College in the 5-th course. In the future I will be a class teacher. Some reasons why I want to be a teacher is to practice three  life´s most important valuable virtues: kindness, patience and understanding and to share my love and passion. Despite the fact that there are many good reasons why to be a teacher, nevertheless I also have my doubts...

The family is very important part of my life. I have an elder sister and a younger brother who made my childhood days more colourful. Three years ago I also got a second little brother. At the moment he is my best little friend. J



I really enjoy reading. Reading broadens my view of life, helps me generate the new ideas and gives the pleasure that barely anything else can offer. My specific interest is to make and decorate birthday cakes. And of course I like travelling  and spending time with my friends.  My friends give me the strength to carry on and enjoy life.

My recent passion is to create different educational games. It´s a lucky person, who can do the things what he/she enjoys and I am one of them.