This is a short one people, so no bother looking for more of the article, because this is it! It occurred to me today as I am starting to wrap up my video unit, that I made a leap of faith concerning my students. A leap that was well worth it in my opinion. Let me explain. I had a detailed unit plan (30+ pages including assessments), and in that unit plan I had scheduled to talk about iMovie (the video editing software we used). Due to time constraints I dumped that part of the unit and leaped right into making the movie. I was worried. I felt I had done my students a disservice, but what happened was my students made very different and very creative videos. Wow! The students discovered and came up with their own techniques on their own. I had very few questions while they edited their movies and the results turned out pretty well. One thing I learned about all this: don’t underestimate, sell short, or assume students have a limited ability to learn complex skills by themselves. I think if the editing section was formerly presented, it may have stifled some of their creativity-this was definitely not the goal. Overall, it was a good experience and next time I have a better direction of what to do, not just for this unit, but others as well.
Technology in the Classroom 