Wicked Problem Part B - Application of TPACK

Technology/Pedagogy:
The main technologies chosen for my project are video cameras and video editing software. For the purpose of the project, getting students to work collaboratively as a small group, these technologies need to be fairly simple to use. The purpose is not to teach them how to use the technologies, but rather to use the technologies as an aide in presenting the content they have learned. I will require that students first work together as a group to solve any problems that come up before coming to me for help. They need to decide as a group that they need help and have exhausted all other resources before asking for help. In this project, I anticipate students will have a solid knowledge of using video cameras, but many will struggle with the video editing part. Part of group work is being able to admit when you are not the most knowledgeable person to get the job done and allowing someone else to take control. The fact that they are, together, creating one video forces them to work together and use each others' strengths to create the best video possible. I will, however, show them some simple tips to using the video software before they get started. This will allow them to get the basics down and then work together to continue making their video better.

Technology/Content:
The purpose of this project is for students to be able to show the learning they have done about a particular topic or topics. It is intended to be a unit summary/assessment in which they must work together to show their learning. Using videos to display their learning creates a final product that can be saved and shown many times to many people. The permanence of the video makes it accessible for years to come as an information pertaining to a specific content area. It also allows students to edit and re-record the information as they go along to create a professional final product that truly represents the information they learned in the unit. Students need to think specifically about what they learned and how to best represent it in a video.

Pedagogy/Content:
By having students work in groups for this project, they are able to take what they have learned and combine it with what the other students in their group learned. The combined effort allows them to produce a more accurate representation of the content and also allows students to continue learning from each other. Many students will have different amounts of information that they retained and combining these ideas in a group will allow them to continuously expand their learning. The students will also be learning video editing from each other. The video editing is a secondary outcome of the project. Again, the group work aspect of the project will force students to rely upon each other to produce a quality video. Ideas from every member of the group will need to come together to accurately reflect the content as well as the group members.