Bigger tasks

The students are in the depths of their main productions now, so it's a good time to give you an idea of the sort of work they're producing.  Two weeks ago was their biggest task to date,  and the options were either to cover an event, or to make a sock drama parody.  Here're some of the results:

Covering an event



The first of these was very interesting, because it's hard to pin down.  The music is very well chosen and something about the blend of natural sound gives it an air of childhood wonder to me.  The second is a good demonstration of the use of titles to move a narrative along, and the final one was a very interesting and personal piece showing that sometimes handheld camera is just spot-on.

Sock puppet parody



This option provided some real play time, and these three show off different techniques for producing drama without the trouble and expense of hiring actors (although the voice acting was superb).  The first two are remakes of scenes from feature films with a few twists (look out for the water skier in the second), while the third is a parody that uses the format of a daytime TV show to have some fun.

A new twist on student-centred learning

This week I'm feeling very smug, as the course seems to be going well and we're getting good feedback. There has however been one particular development that I think is well beyond what you'd expect to see on a level 1 introductory course. The students have been fantastic with helping one another and got into the spirit of student-centred peer learning: An active enquiry into a subject with support where it's needed and plenty of room to learn through shared discovery.

We've shaped some opportunities to get them thinking about giving others opportunities to learn through tasks and an EMA option that relate to making tutorials in their own right on subjects they choose. However they're going well beyond that now, and we've seen some great examples of spontaneous tutorials being posted outside of all that, specifically made for other students on the course. Hence the smugness, and I'd like to share 3 examples with you here. The first two are quite technical and relate to specific enquiries that were posted in the forums:

These are interesting in their own right, and a great example of the 'hero' spirit that's developed.
The third though, is different and a I think if anything more special: A tutorial about film-making that one of the students made for herself, and which she then shared with everyone else: