Introduction
Push Cart Media is a professional training program for schools that need to effectively utilize available computer and media technologies. We employ two complementary strategies to help schools benefit from 21st century technology. Push Cart Media inventories the school’s available technology assets to determine how they can be used to achieve the school’s educational goals. We then provide teacher training that is specifically adapted for use with the available technology.
We understand that teachers have varying degrees of expertise in the use of technology; some are self-taught and others have received professional training. At Push Cart Media, our training approach integrates savvy computer users with those who are not as knowledgeable. Users of all levels are accommodated, and everyone can gain additional insight from the training.
In addition to providing professional development on how to use computers and ancillary equipment, Push Cart Media sessions incorporate training on how to effectively use photography, video, audio, and new media applications to enhance learning.
Push Cart Media School Programs
Technology Assessment
Provide an inventory of available technology at the school and determine how it can be used to meet the goals and requirements set by school administration.
Professional Development for Educators
- Introduction – The day starts with a brief PowerPoint lecture, using a classic “corporate” approach of bullet points and words, words, words. It will become clear why this is not a way to use these tools effectively. This display will be tailored to the available technology and grade levels of the school.
- Equipment – Participants will be asked to set up the equipment. Some participant will be quite comfortable and familiar with the equipment; others will be less confident. In this first exercise, we poll the participants and match them up – a technically adept person will be partnered with someone who is less so. Each group will then set up the equipment that will be used for the workshop. The participants who are less familiar with the technology should be the ones to set it up, with the assistance of those who know. One presumption we can make is that the people who are more comfortable with the equipment will be more likely to experiment.
- Media – Using media to teach is more than simply knowing how to plug in the equipment. Using media to teach entails an understanding of how media is perceived, and how messages are received via various media pathways. We will briefly review some media and learning theory. What media can be used as teaching tools? How can various media – still photographs, video, audio, music – be employed to advance the classroom agenda. How can media be used to encourage interactivity in the classroom? This segment will set the tone for the next exercise.
- PowerPoint – PowerPoint is a rich program that can serve as a central organizing place for using media in the classroom. It is not just a way to project bullet points and text, but a relatively simple tool that will enable the teacher to bring a wide range of media types into the class. Using the introduction PowerPoint we will demonstrate:
- Advantage of using pictures and video in PowerPoint
- How to find media to incorporate into a PowerPoint?
- Using Google image
- Library of Congress
- Prelinger Archives
- Other free legal sources for images and video
- How do you add media to your PowerPoint?
- Still images and image manipulation
- Video media
- Audio media
- Recording a narration
- Using “synched” audio in PowerPoint
- Other tools that extend the function of PowerPoint
- Equipment compatibility testing
- Conversion to Flash
- Using PowerPoint as a webcast
- Practice – Depending on the available equipment, participants will be divide into partners or small groups to create a short PowerPoint presentation using some of the tools that have been presented.
Using Media to Enhance Teaching and Learning
- Video
- Video camera techniques for better images
- Framing and composition and how they impact your message
- Getting video into the computer
- Rudimentary editing using simple tools (depending on OS)
- How video can be used in the classroom:
- Student production
- Recording and archiving
- Making lessons available on the web
- Audio
- How to improve sound quality with video? If the sound is not understandable, you lose continuity when presenting visual media.
- Basic introduction to microphones, mixers, audio levels, and interfacing
- Avoiding extraneous noise.
- What you need to know to get good sound and why that it important.
- Still photography
- How can you use a digital camera effectively?
- What makes a good picture; how a picture tells a story, and how to tell stories with pictures?
- How to load the image into the computer, rudimentary image processing, and how to load it into PowerPoint.
- Using other technologies
- Skype video calls and video conferencing to extend the classroom learning.
- Webcasting using simple off-the-shelf tools and technologies such as UStream.