Things to Remember

Today I felt like I'm sure some of our students must feel from time to time.  I think it could best be described as boxed in and semi-struggling.

My team and I have been tasked with creating short videos which can serve as tutorials to guide parents and students through accessing and using the resources we are posting so that students can learn on their own at home.

We aren't really providing instructional lessons, just resources and materials.  So, often, parents might not know how to use the online textbook or the math practice site or create a Google Drawing.  Plus, they may be overwhelmed at searching the web to find support materials to do that.  Short, simple videos to the rescue!

Now, I'm not struggling with showing how to use the tool.  I am learning to use a tool to create the visuals that I don't customarily use.  One of our goals is to create all the videos to have a similar look.  Just like people have favorite brands of paper towels or toilet paper or peanut butter, we have favorite tools for creating and we each have our own style of design.  Yet, this time, we all needed to have a cohesive look and feel to the products and we needed to have the products done on a short timeline. We even had a checklist and got peer feedback. I get all that and I wholeheartedly support it when putting a product out for the masses.  It is sort of like quality control.

However, I also felt a little bit like the teacher had told me to create a set of slides.  Each slide should have three bullet points and two pictures.  If you put a tulip on the slide, the petals should be yellow #F8C202, the stem should be green #0D3F01, the leaves should be green #ABCE5F but I wanted my petals to be red #E3401B! Most of the time as collaborators and team members, we have more choices and more options.  This time was just a little different because we are in different circumstances.

I know that in the classroom with good teachers students almost always have choices and options for how to report what they know.  They are provided with resources and asked to apply their learning to show what they know and how they understand.  However, I also know that there are times when this isn't possible.  So, as an educator, I certainly want to keep in mind how I felt today working on this project and try to be one who opens the door to learning and creating more often than giving students a box and asking them to place certain items into it in a certain order and way.