Video Documentary: Textbooks in Education
Text, Textbooks and Teaching: The Role of Textbooks in the Classroom
I chose to use iMovie to create my video documentary about textbooks in education. I do not have extensive experience creating such lengthy videos or multi-media presentations so this was an obvious choice for me because I had used this platform before with students and at home. However, these previous presentations have always been shorter with far less content. As well, these movies usually feature self shot photos or videos. In this video documentary about the history of textbooks in the classroom, I found that I had to locate relevant photos online that would support the content that I was presenting. I found that finding appropriate photos to accompany my words was more difficult that I had anticipated. Likewise, I also discovered that I had to find multiple photos about one idea because focusing too long on one photo made the documentary less interesting. Perhaps next time, I would try to incorporate footage or videos I had taken myself.
In addition, I found that 10 minutes in dialogue went surprisingly quickly. This was somewhat of a challenge because it meant that I had to cull the information and really focus my attention around the core idea of the purpose of textbooks in education today. I had to use specific information that surrounded my conception that textbooks are simply one view of a topic and as such, must be used only as a starting point in the classroom for further investigation and discussion. I could have included a more in-depth history of the advent of the bound book yet I chose to focus more attention and time on how the textbook was used historically in classrooms as a means to further particular messages or values. I believe I achieved this in a succinct manner within the allotted time.
In the end, I first approached this project as I would when writing a paper. I explored the available resources and collected the relevant data. My script was written very much like a paper, which I then translated into pictoral and finally audio format. I hope that the final product in engaging and interesting to the viewer.