Ed in ETEC

Resources, Resources, Resources…

While it seems on the surface that Dafna has very limited resources at her disposal, there are ways around the problem that would allow her to maximize the utilization of her resources, allow students to gain fully from this activity, and to promote interactions with the community school.

Organization

Most alternate schools have a close working relationship with the community school, and some even operate as a satellite program from the community school. In either case, Dafna can actually converse with the media arts teachers at the community school, to see if her students can actually spend some time at the school using the community school’s equipment. Within the VBE, there are schools with very strong media arts/dram program – their equipment would definitely be better than those that Dafna has at her alternate school. The working partnership can also give Dafna’s students the opportunity to spend some time at the community school, something that, from my working experience, alternate school’s students sometimes enjoy.

If that option is not feasible for Dafna, the fact that her students are doing an interdisciplinary curriculum at her alternate school also allows for incredible flexibility. From my understanding, students in an alternate program still have to complete their core academic classes (English, Science, Social studies, and math) while also enrolling in elective courses. Dafna’s music 10 students, while working on this music video project, still need to work on their academic courses. As long as Dafna helps her students in signing up for sections to do the media project, competition for the limited equipment is actually a non-problem.

In a typical four-hour day, for example, Student A can start the day by spending an hour filming in the neighbourhood, followed by an hour of math, an hour of science, and an hour of another elective course (those three hours can be used with more flexibility, as there are fewer/no issues with equipment). Student B can use the camera in hour 2, and C can film in hour 3, etc. The key is to provide equal time for all students, and to ensure that everyone can have access to the equipment.

Editing time would be the most demanding for equipment use, but again, a working partnership with the community school can easily solve the problem. Looking for the media arts’ classroom, Dafna can look for a spare block where the equipment would be sitting idle. At that time, she can take all of her students to the community school, and have them work on the editing part of the assignment. As all VBE’s high schools operate on a 2-day, 8-block rotation structure, Dafna can expect her students to have access for such equipment every other day, 80 minutes each.

Dissemination of Finished Project

Most alternate schools have a website that features the projects, event highlights, etc., on it. After Dafna’s students have finished creating their music videos, these music videos can be hosted by the school’s website, as long as they abide to some of the regulations set out by the VBE (for example, a student’s name can only be identified with their first name, and the initial of their last name, i.e. Ed Leung = Ed L.). To save server’s disk space, these videos can also be uploaded onto YouTube or similar video sharing site concurrently. This actually would allow for increased exposure, and from my experience working with students attending an alternate schools who may suffer from difficulties with their self esteem, the publication on a public domain may be viewed as extremely valuable for the students.