For this assignment, I wanted to try one of the latest trends – Reels or Shorts on Youtube. Many of the Reels I’ve seen on Instagram are a compilation of photos or short videos. Some of the creators have voice-overs or use a song a tune that enhances the story they are telling.
The short-form video is a compilation of pictures of items in my work bag. Each item that I put into my work bag enters the scene one at a time. There is time for the viewer to see the objects clearly. To help viewers understand this is a work bag, a “work day” sticker is on the bottom left corner. Viewers can also gather the mood when I pack for a work day. After rendering the video, I realized that some smaller items were not clearly shown on the screen. This may impact the viewers’ perception and understanding of my story.
The benefit of using Reels to tell a story is that it is quick and easily digestible by viewers. As I get older, I realize my attention span is not as long as I was younger. I divide everything into small sections when I work on assignments or read readings. With Reels or short-form content, viewers can pay attention with minimal opportunities to be distracted because the content is less than one minute long. Along with the benefits, there are challenges to short-form content without audio. It is entirely up to the creator to design the content; as the viewer, they may not be able to fully capture the entire story that the creator intended. As The New London Group stated, educators need to be conscious of how we teach because of the gcan teach (1996). Because I am not familiar with who is viewing my short-form content, I decided not to use words. Instead, I chose to use background music to help tell my story. The items I am showing are relatively essential, and I hope the general public can decipher the objects. I believe that social media culture has changed the way that we learn. This change stems from the “new technologies, such as the iconographic, text, and screen-based modes of interacting with automatic machinery” (The New London Group, 1996). We are able to scroll through our screens, and videos still start playing automatically, and images will appear. The feed we get is all based on algorithms collected from the history of what we’ve seen or searched.
Reference:
The New London Group. (1996). A pedagogy of multiliteracies: Designing social futures. (Links to an external site.) Harvard Educational Review 66(1), 60-92.
