Questions_for_Sergio's_Students

=Frequently Asked Questions about the Videos Produced by Sergio Mazzarelli's Students=

In what kind of EFL class were the videos produced?
//This was a required class for second-year students in the English department of a college in Nagasaki, Japan. The class concentrated on paragraph writing combined with speaking activities.//

What was the assignment?
//The assignment was "My Hometown or Favorite Town." How to interpret it and what to include was entirely up to the students. Moreover, those who were unable to return to their hometowns to take pictures were allowed to pick up a different topic, which was Nagasaki, the college, or both.//

Where did the photos come from?
//The assignment required the students to take all the pictures by themselves. This was not a problem because in Japan practically all college students own camera phones. In addition, a digital camera was available upon request to any student who wished to use it. The teacher believed that letting students take their own pictures would encourage them to be original. Besides, if other people's images had been included, students would have had to deal with copyright issues. Most images found online are copyrighted, so it is not legal to use them without permission. There are exemptions for classroom projects, but those do not apply if the project is made available to the general public as was the case with our videos, which were uploaded to the Internet so that people from all over the world could watch them.//

Did the students receive any training in photography?
//No.//

Had the students ever edited a video before?
//No.//

How many computers did the students use?
//The students used computers in a computer lab, so they had a computer each.// NOTE: //Having a computer for each student speeds up the video editing process, but it is not a requirement for this kind of project, as computers can easily be shared.//

How were the photos transferred from the camera phones to the computers?
//The photos were not emailed, as this would result in a cost for the students. Instead, a USB memory card reader was purchased by the teacher. This only cost 2,000 yen (about US $18). The memory card in each student's phone was extracted and inserted into the reader so as to transfer the photos into the computer. NOTE: The lab actually had a network drive that all students could access, so it did not matter which computer was used for uploading the photos to that drive. However, having such a drive is not necessary. It just saved us some time. If we had not had the network drive, students would have had to take turns at attaching the memory card reader to their individual computers.//

Did the students edit their photos?
//No. The photos were used as they were. However, students had been instructed to take as many photos as possible so as to have enough material to choose from.//

How long did it take to complete the project?
//During the third week of the term, the students had used an online class forum to talk among themselves about their respective hometowns or favorite towns. They did not yet know they were going to make video slide shows, but this activity presumably helped focus their minds on the topic. They were informed of the project on the following week, just before most of them would have a chance to return to their hometowns because there were three national holidays in a row. After they returned from this break, they were shown some slide shows available on the Internet and had a brief chance to practice with the software they would use to create the slide shows (Windows Movie Maker). In the main stage of the project, one class was used to select the pictures and begin writing the scripts, another to review the scripts, and part of a third to practice reading them. The students then recorded the narration one by one in the teacher's office (using a digital recorder), and finally a fourth class was used to put together the slide shows in the computer lab. (At our college, each class lasts 90 minutes.)// //The slide shows were uploaded to YouTube by the teacher.//

What was the students' reaction to this project?
//The reaction was initially guarded, then positive, and finally very positive. Initially, the students appeared a little nervous about using video. Things got better when they saw that it was easy to make slide shows, and really took off when they realized that they could communicate with other people through the slide shows. Examples of the students' final feedback are available among the materials for this week. You can access them later from the wiki page for this week, or you can access them now by clicking here.//

In what kind of EFL class were the videos produced?
//This was an elective class for students in the English department of a Japanese college who wish to become teachers. The topic of the class was the use of AV media in education.// //There were only four students.//

What was the assignment?
//The assignment was "My Hometown, Favorite Town, or Significant Place."//

Where did the photos come from?
//Same as for second-year students. However, all the third- and fourth-year students chose to borrow the teacher's digital camera or use their own digital cameras in addition to their mobile phones.//

Did the students receive any training in photography?
//No.//

Had the students ever edited a video before?
//No.//

How many computers did the students use?
//Same as for second-year students. The students used a computer lab, so they had a computer each.//

How were the photos transferred from the camera phones to the computers?
//Same as for second-year students. The memory card in each student's phone or camera was extracted and inserted into the reader so as to transfer the photos into the computer. NOTE:// //Digital cameras are sold with a special USB cable that allows them to be attached directly to the computer, but the teacher decided not to ask students to locate such cables and bring them to school.//

Did the students edit their pictures?
//Same as for second-year students. No.//

How long did it take to complete the project?
//The students were informed of the project during the first week of the term, and a number of slide shows available on the Internet were shown to them that week and the following week. During the fifth week of the term the students had a chance to return to their hometowns to take photos because there were three national holidays in a row. After they returned from this break, one class was used to select the photos and write the scripts, a second class to let them practice with the software they would use to edit the slide shows (Windows Movie Maker), and a third class to teach them how to use software to record and edit sound (Audacity). Finally, part of a fourth class was used to record the voice overs in the computer lab, a fifth class to edit the slide shows, and a sixth class to teach the students how to upload the slide shows to YouTube, tag them, etc. (At our college, each class lasts 90 minutes.) The approach taken may look time consuming, but here the main purpose was to give the students the skills they would need to use slide shows as teachers in their own classes, so technical issues had to be covered more extensively.//

What was the students' reaction to this kind of project?
//The reaction was enthusiastic throughout.//