Futuring

1. How would you "grade" or assess Hanna's - Fox Becomes a Better Person, and School Train ?

My "knee-jerk" reaction: Give Hanna an A+ and the School Train crew a B (and that just because they are only in the fourth grade).

Of course this raises what is perhaps the perennial issue of assessment - How to [most] objectively assign a value to work done by someone other than yourself?
To step out of my capacity as a consumer of this digital media and presume myself to be the professional educator responsible for fairly evaluating these pieces:

• Before embarking on these projects with my students I would clearly delineate the rubric by which they would be graded - laying out my expectations concerning the overall message, how clearly that message is conveyed, etc...
• I believe that an awareness of students' capabilities is essential to evaluating them accurately. (Perhaps Hanna pounded out her drawings in an hour long sitting and extemporized in front of the camera [stories gleaned from her elders at an early age], then exploited her older sibling's iMovie savy to put it all together - in all, less than a nights work).
• I think I would still struggle to overcome my ingrained multimedia biases - I appreciate Hanna's judicious use (and restraint) of technology, whereas I have a hard time seeing beyond School Trains' seeming enamoration with the gadgetry available to manipulate an otherwise simple message.

All that aside:

I am fascinated by Hanna's (perhaps) unconscious use of juxtaposition -

• A well edited (or simply well executed) video utilizing such charming, homely, and organic backdrops (her own art, I presume).
• A traditional story, told in a (somewhat, I think) traditional style, delivered in traditional regalia, YET related by such a young participant of the oral tradition.

Should this be intentional (as ascertained via a vis-a-vis conversation), Hanna could expect an assessment even more glowing than the exceptional tag I am already inclined to label her video with.


I like to think that I could more accurately assess School Train were I actually present in the classroom for the making of the video. Especially at that grade level, group participation and (merely) the ability to work together to produce a communal project warrants commendation.

Had I witnessed the effort injected into the School Train project, I think I would be more inclined to grade them favorably (regardless of my take on the end result).

1. What impacts could the developments portrayed in epic2015 have on your classroom, particularly with respect to things like podcasting?

Considering the revolutionary (maybe) developments confronting, informing, and shaping the media/press these days - the invocation of Carlyle's "fourth estate" could hardly be more apt. Whatever great new ideals revolutions purport to usher into the world, they seem to have a tendency to devolve into madness. (to indulge in my own little largely uninformed historical reconstruction).

I fear that while all this powerful technology offers a deeper, broader, and more nuanced delivery of news (as opposed to knowledge?), we will find the information steaming its way into our earseyesandminds simply narrower, shallower, sensational & untrue (to plagiarize epic's own dichotomy/juxtaposition).

Even disregarding my own technophobic disposition, I am concerned that podcasting (ha! I speak as if I actually know something about this phenomena) poses more of a threat to my classroom's integrity than it does provide opportunity for meaningful educational opportunity.

• Just one more way to cheat - just when I was getting a good eye for furtive texting.
• I wonder just how much literacy is correlated with socioeconomic status - seems we've just recently created a whole new population of illiterates: not throught their own sloth or simple-mindedness, but simply because they do not have the resources to access technology.

1. How might you use Sabrina’s piece as a model for something you would do with your own students?

"Sabrina's Journey" chronicles the trajectory of a Southeast Alaskan teacher's life - addressing her decision to attend a university outside of Alaska and culminating in the return to her hometown of Klawock.

Throughout all the episodes of her life, Sabrina asks herself "do I belong here?"
Sabrina casts her life and choices in such a way that her experiences assume the stature of an epic work of literature or a grand adventure.

Sabrina's method of framing her experiences highlight the importance of all the decisions we will make:
I believe that the approach Sabrina takes to her video is eminently applicable to the lives' of high school students.

• Paramount to the lives of most high schoolers I know is a sense of belonging
• Framing our lives in terms of self discovery

I think that my students could greatly benefit from a similarly introspective re-framing of their life experiences and choices.