ICTs for Youth #4: Blogging

I decided to communicate this exploration of blogging site WordPress (kind of meta!) via a Piktochart report format. I wanted to think about WordPress as an ICT for youth because my nephew informed me that he uses WordPress in school. I’ll admit I was surprised and very intrigued.

The infographic-like report lends itself to brevity, but I would add that my challenges with WordPress at first were in learning the various options it offers. For example, the first time I used it I needed to produce text within a certain word count, so I typed in Microsoft Word and then pasted into a WordPress post. As soon as I did that, I noticed the word count at the bottom of the screen! Other “challenges” were simply attempts to learn how to edit beyond the text:  adding hyperlinks, editing images, figuring out how to caption images, and distinguishing between tags and categories. I also had to look up pingbacks and tagbacks, since I had no idea what they were.

The word cloud included in the report graphic below was created with all of the posts I had posted on WordPress to date.

ICTs for Youth #2: Short videos

I used a new medium to present thoughts about my first ICT for Youth project:  I created a video using GoAnimate, one of many websites I found that offered video editing tools. I checked out several similar websites prior to choosing this one, but many required payment. I actually started with a website called Digital Films, but I decided not to use it because the only option for female characters was to show a lot of midriff! I thought this was very odd (at best), and definitely not something I would choose to use with young people.

 

I began by using the GoAnimate tutorial, which walked me through the basic functions of the site. There were a lot of bells and whistles, but this helped de-mystify the seemingly huge tool bar. After creating a tutorial video, I started my own video about my first ICT activity. This included some information from the tutorial plus some trial and error – lots of trial and error. There were a lot of options for personalizing and editing the video, which was both useful and overwhelming.

I didn’t even get close to exploring all of the editing options, but I definitely developed a good working knowledge of this particular site and its most fundamental tools. From a brief glance around other similar sites, it seems that this knowledge would translate well if a different video creation website was preferred for some reason. However, I do think it would be a good idea for anyone facilitating a workshop or class to familiarize themselves with the specific site, since GoAnimate in particular has a lot of options that really dig into details, such as breaking down the length of transitions in ¼ second increments.

I would use this video creation tool with middle school or high school students to help them present information in a more interesting, fun way. For example, I’d want to teach them how to create videos for school projects (which would also require a teacher that would allow such a presentation). Since there are so many options, I think what would make the most sense would be to go through the basics, similar to what the tutorial does, then let each person work on an individual project and do one-on-one facilitation throughout the room.

Teaching GoAnimate or a similar tool to teenagers would also be a good opportunity to teach proper presentation skills. For example, it offers even more text transition styles (e.g. wipe, blinds, etc.) than a PowerPoint presentation. Often young presenters get too tempted by this kind of function and get a little carried away to the point of distraction for the audience. Peer editing may be a good way to mitigate this tendency. I also think peer editing would be helpful in teaching students how to gauge the clarity of their content and whether or not the text is allowed enough time on the screen for someone to read. These are both issues I personally struggled with, because conveying concepts in an animation is a little less straightforward than communicating those same ideas in writing.