Oak Canyon

Interesting. Simply interesting. I didn't know that junior high schools offered technology communications classes. The class that I went to on Thursday was one of these communications classes. They were in the process of developing their own motion picture video. For the day's work, the students were to get into their three to four person groups and sketch their thirty second video on paper, scene by scene. Then they were asked to write a one paragraph detailed description of what their movie was about. First of all, I was amazed at the number of groups that had story lines based on violence. Maybe it was the fact that out of a class size of 21, there were only two girls. Who knows? Once they were complete with their sketches and story lines, they were told to go over to the computers in the classroom and play around with different software, especially I-MOVIE. The teacher wanted them to become more familiar with the programs. I was shocked by the intelligence and versatility of these students in their ability to instantly become familiar with computer programs. I only wish that I would have had the opportunity to learn about computers when I was their age; it could have paid off for me by now.
I know it is good to let young students be creative and come up with solutions on their own, but I think that if I were the teacher of this class, I would have helped to stimulate their creative minds better. From what I observed, the teacher was only periodically walking around the classroom to answer students' questions. Many of the kids looked like they were at a stalemate. I would have had more of a one-on-one approach with each group, going around and spending ample time with them to make sure they were reaching a higher potential. I think they would have had more fun if the teacher would have given them some creative feedback on their own ideas, which is to say helping them to expand what they already had.