Week 6: Final Post

 Genius Hour Post #6 

My Genius Hour blog post sums up my six-week journey and experiences using a drone as an educational tool. At the beginning of this project, I really did not think I would be able to accomplish as much as I did in the short timeframe that I had available to work on it each week. In fact, one hour a week did not seem like enough time to properly learn the techniques to operate a drone and then edit a quality video. However, I realize that the power of motivation can have on your engagement and commitment when working on a topic or new learning you are passionate about and that you want to succeed in. I looked forward to these working sessions and will continue developing my drone skills further even after this Genius Hour blog is over.  As a future teacher, I can relate to offering students inquiry based learning to inspire new learning as my own experience in this type of learning has made a positive impact on my skills as now I can incorporate this learning to my work both at school and home projects.

I am happy with the result of the educational video about Green Venture and the way it highlights an eco-friendly organization in Hamilton. This video is posted to my YouTube channel and perhaps it could even be used as a promotional video for Green Venture to inspire interest in joining the environmentally conscious movement. I realize the benefits of using a YouTube channel to educate students about any topic in the classroom, but like all technology the educator needs to be careful of any inappropriate material or privacy issues. Controlling my own YouTube channel gives me the flexibility to extend learning opportunities outside of the classroom, as I can call up a project or place on video quickly and easily. Even so there are definite responsibilities when posting media on YouTube to ensure that the education content is both appropriate and consists of quality and lasting information.  I also found while researching my topic that drones could be very useful in STEM work inside of the classroom. This area would be great to investigate further to explain physics and mathematic concepts in intermediate and high school placements. I learned quickly that just keeping the drone in the air without contacting objects applies many STEM skills. Taking good video content expanded into the STEAM stills as the task is very demanding to get the quality I was looking to achieve. Teaching a student more about drones and letting them fly the drone would be beneficial in demonstrating to students the way math skills can be applied in real life.  Letting the students create an educational video would also help students learn more about the digital language and technology available that will prepare for further learning in this area. 

During this project I learned many new skills.  I gained valuable experience in editing a video using Final Cut Pro, operating and flying a drone safely, as well as creating a short educational video. All these acquired skills will help me as a future educator in the 21st century learning space. I believe that technology will continue to be used more often in our classroom and it will need to be incorporated in schools more as well as at home. As future educators, we need to be digitally literate along side the traditional literacy and numeracy.

In answering my Genius Hour question, “How can drones be used as effective educational tools to educate others about the world around them?”, I conclude that using drones effectively in education is only the starting point as the possibilities are endless.  Educators can use drones to produce videos, but students can learn the process as well. Schools can buy kits that challenge students to build their own drones for their technology-based clubs where cooperative team building skills can be applied. Furthermore, drones can be used to teach science, technology and math in the classrooms, as the device can be manipulated as part of experiments showing fight, fluid mechanics (air) and properties of gravity. Coding is a new area of mathematics that is now included in the 2020 Ontario Mathematics Curriculum and using drones as part of this section will provide innovative learning and an opportunity to apply coding.  As future educators, we need to stay current in our own learning so we can prepare our students for the twenty-first century.  From this point on, I will continue to incorporate drones and the newest technology in my own education as well as extending this type of innovation for my future students to experience. I realize the opportunity and time given to me to work on a topic of interest has left me with learning that will positively impact my own teaching and hobbies at home.  I would like to provide these types of learning opportunities so my future students will positively benefit from their learning journey.

 

Thank you for following me on this Genius Hour journey. I hope you also learned the benefits of using drones as teaching tools in the educational field but also the positive impacts this innovative technology can have in your own as well as your students’ learning.

Week 5

  Welcome back to my blog as we approach the completion of my Genius Hour Project. This week I began the process of gathering information to wrap up my project. First, I planned the ideas for both my Ted Talk and then the way my culminating Drone video would complete my final piece of the project.  After that, I prepared and completed my Ted Talk with the purpose to educate others about my learning on Drones and how these devises could be effectively implemented in education. Next week my final project will be posted, so stay tuned. 

I found preparing the speaking parts and filming my Ted Talk very challenging. My initial goal was to share a comprehensive captivating story about my journey without seeming it to be a simple retell.  With that in mind, I created my Ted talk without a script because when looking online I found that many excellent Ted talk speakers mentioned that they did not use scripts and the ones that did use scripts found the scripts were very distracting to their presentation to the point that they lost the audiences’ attention. In preparation, I knew my material and lived my learning experiences so I knew I could perform my speech naturally. After some research, I decided to use Will Stephen’s How to sound smart in your TEDx Talk to help me. My Ted Talk was a little bit longer than expected as I found I had so much to share about my topic and experiences that it would not fit into the 5-minute timeframe even with being concise with my word choices. I realized during my online search, that most Ted Talks were about 8 to 9 minutes long, so mine at 10 minutes would be an acceptable timeframe. I wanted to make my Ted Talk a lasting quality video that could be used to educate others about my work and the way Drones can help others learn about the world around them. If you would like to watch my TED Talk, please click on the link on this blog. 

As this was the final week to capture video to use for my final project, I had little choice but to film in the rain. I did get permission to film at Green Venture again and I was curious to see if the footage would be compromised with the rain.  I had to video tape the footage during the evening when the location was empty.  This precaution kept me within the restrictions of my Drone licence, according to guidelines set up by Transport Canada.  I planned ahead and brought extra batteries which I ended up needing to finish filming. I quickly learned that a 5-minute Drone video can require much more video footage using up many batteries.  After many hours of flight time to get the different angle shots, I took the video clips home to work on the editing part.  I also kept in mind that I would not have the chance to obtain any additional video clips during editing at home so, I made sure to get extra shots.  During the Drone flights, I unexpectantly found that birds and Drones have a love or hate relationship. Some birds I had to avoid as they tried to attack the Drone.  Most birds tried to fly in groups with the Drone which affected the video quality as they would get in the way of the camera lens. Once I got home, I did some additional research to include factual information for my voice overs on the final cut. 

This upcoming week I will edit my final clips to my video using Final Cut pro and place the finished product on my Blog site for everyone to view. Thank you for following my Drone journey on this blog.  I hope it will inspire you and others that Drones can be used to film places of interest or help teach STEM related experiences that would benefit any lesson.