May 22 2011
Shining Moments
After my last post I could see that I was sounding quite negative – should I call it despondent? Then I was sent a video of a very recent interview that happened and it buoyed me considerably.
A grade 8 teacher, on a whim, did a Google search on Jeff Smith – the class’s favourite author of the Bones graphic novel series. He found the name of Jeff’s publicist and emailed a request for an online interview between Jeff and the students. He agreed and a date in May was set!
Next came the technology plans – the teacher had hoped to use Adobe Connect and the school’s one and only Smartboard – after many trial runs, they found that Adobe Connect crashed over and over again (not enough bandwidth in our board). He was not discouraged and decided to try Skype – which required the actions of our tech department to change settings on the Smartboard laptop to allow the addition of Skype.
The class did online research for good interview questions and prepared for the big event. The questions were displayed on the Smartboard, as was the large Skype screen – that way, the students would not be nervous – they could just read the questions that Jeff Smith could not see. They set up their own webcam in front of a podium and placed it so that Jeff could see the whole class. Students brought in their Bones stuffed animals – Bones books – a Bones fest was happening.
When the interview began, right on time, Jeff looked very laid-back, but as the questions proceeded, he could see that this class did their homework – he commented over and over again that these were VERY good questions – he asked if this was an Arts school and the teacher replied that this was just a typical Ontario grade 8 class.
All in all, this was a fantastic experience – Jeff gave the students all kinds of advice on how to write good graphic novels and how to do the art effectively. The students are now working on their own versions. Unfortunately we can’t release the video as we had a couple of students with publication restrictions on their photos – otherwise I would share it with the world! I also have to thank our IT department who sent a technician to the school more than once to get everything set up and who stayed throughout the interview in case of glitches.
I challenge all of our teachers now to do some searching of their own classroom passions – is there someone out there that they could reach out to and do the same thing? Let’s keep the pressure on to show how incredible these opportunities can be for student learning!
🙂