Fwd: recording started!
Randolph Wang
From: Randolph Wang <ryw...@cs.princeton.edu>
Date: Mon, Jul 12, 2010 at 12:13 AM
Subject: recording started!
To: Saraswati Teachers Training <str...@gmail.com>, Rani Gurung
<gurun...@gmail.com>, wangchho sherpa <wang...@yahoo.com>
(I don't know who's reading the "STRC" mails, but please make sure
everyone involved in the project sees this message. At least Kush and
Dr. KN. You can print it out if that's easier for some people.)
We did the first "real" recording today!
(1) The teachers were absolutely fantastic!
They were great teachers to begin with, which I have already said
before. On top of that, it was very apparent that they invested a
great deal of time planning and preparing for the lessons. So
everything went perfect. The interactions with kids, the paper
teaching aids that are nicely taped to the board, the fact that
multiple aspects, reading, speaking, acting, are all nicely
integrated, everything was perfect.
The kids participating are also appropriate. This is a new school to
me---one that I haven't been to before. The level of children appears
to be a bit lacking, which is perfect---we don't want the kids to know
too much. So the kind of interaction was what we desire. When the
teachers speak English to the children, a lot of the time, the kids
don't get it. So the teacher has to adjust and adapt. This is
perfect. This is what we want.
I mean, for now, the kids in video won't know a whole lot. Over time,
they will improve. We want to show the process. We want to show how
good teachers interact with children that are not so good, and how
they get them to improve.
The school environment was also good for shooting. This school is not
as pretty as the one I went to last time, but it's perfectly fine for
shooting, because the lighting was fine.
Dr. K.N. also set it up so that we are starting shooting in the middle
of the school year---in this way, we're not disturbing the kids'
regular classes. This is good. We will "wrap around" later and cover
the missing classes later. This would be fine. (As observed before,
there's a slight disadvantage in that we will have at least two
different groups of kids on video and there will be a slight
discontinuity. All things considered, I don't think this is a big
deal though.)
(2) Keeping this up!
Going forward, I think the most important thing is to keep up and
shoot such quality videos REGULARLY and consistently.
We don't want to press the teachers to do a lot of it very quickly.
As evidenced today, such good lessons take a great deal of planning
and preparation. It's hard work. If we push teachers to do a lot of
it too quickly, they will quickly tire of the novelty, burn out, and
stop participating, or at least slack off on quality.
But it is really important that we make a schedule and a plan and do
this REGULARLY and consistently. A central point and attraction of
this project is that the video library that we build up over time must
be LARGE and extensive. A little one-off video is easy to make and
anyone can do it as a photo-op fake effort. It's like the difference
between one page of one book and a big library of diverse books.
Anyone can go get a random page from somewhere, but it's not much use.
On the other hand, when the pages after pages, books after books grow
to encompass a RICH LIBRARY, the difference is not just quantitative,
but qualitative!
So, while this is a good start, this is nothing more than the
beginning of a long marathon. It's really important to keep a
long-term view and do the marathon regularly and consistently.
Dr. KN also said that he would bring the best teachers from other
schools to be filmed. This would be an important contribution and new
development. In Lucknow, we have not diversified our teacher sources
although we should have.
(3) Play the videos back to your own teachers.
Including the ones who were filmed in the first place. Good teachers
will know how to critique themselves better than anyone else can. It
will help them improve themselves. Play the videos to other teachers
in a faculty meeting or something, and everyone will be able to
benefit and get motivated by the best teachers.
(4) Some small details.
(a) We have found in Lucknow it's really helpful and important to add
English subtitles to English lessons. For the particular lesson we
filmed today, I don't think it's as important because the teacher did
an extra-excellent job of putting key sentences on the board, so that
makes the subtitling less necessary. But if the teachers' style
changes, keep in mind that we may still need to do subtitling. This
is a labor-intensive effort. We don't do this lightly. But it's
important to keep this in mind, that it might be necessary at some
point.
(b) Potentially use a wireless microphone. The wired microphone that
we're using now is ok and adequate. At some point, to give filmed
teachers extra mobility flexibility, you might want to switch to a
wireless microphone.
This is a little more complicated than you might think. Kush and I
decided on a wireless microphone in the market. But its receiver
requires AC power, which you most likely don't have at the shooting
site. What I do in this situation is to bring a UPS to the school and
connect the microphone receiver to the UPS. The UPS will make an
annoying beeping sound. You will have to open up the UPS and destroy
the beeper. It'll be fine.
A slightly better solution is to locate a wireless microphone that
uses batteries in both the transmitting unit and the receiver unit.
Unfortunately, good ones are hard to find. It's something that I can
order from the US and bring here in the future.
(c) Use still camera. I told Kush that there are certain things that
we want to photograph using a still camera for each shooting session.
The most important thing is to shoot any teaching aids teachers bring
to class. The village schools won't be able to replicate all these
nicely-made colorful teaching aids. If we can show nice photographs
of these on a village screen, it'll make the teaching aids made by our
teachers have a bigger lasting impact in village schools as well.
We also want to film the pages of the textbooks that the video lesson
covers. This is important for everyone to be able to see how words on
a piece of paper translates to a good lively lesson. Also, over time,
textbooks might change. We need to know what changes and whether and
how to change videos to adapt.
And as long as you're at it, you want to take a couple pictures of the
teachers and the classroom activities as well.
I showed Kush how all these pictures should be uploaded into the video
database as well.
We will be able to show these pictures in a village classroom. We
also retain the flexibility of being able to add these
(better-looking) pictures into the videos digitally.
(d) Tests.
The teachers who have contributed to filming, at some point, we will
have to ask them contribute little tests. The teachers can submit
these tests on plain papers, written with pencils. We will worry
about turning them into digital format.
Tthis is really important. We need small units of tests that the
village teachers will be asked to conduct and submit results of. The
test results will be absolutely critical for us to gauge where the
project is heading.
(e) Occasionally lifting the camera from the tripod and shoot hand-held.
Dr. KN observed that it will be nice to film a different view of the
class in terms of kids' response etc.
It's ok to dis-mount the camera from the tripod and hand-hold while
Kush walks around the class a bit. This can be done occasionally.
But sparingly. Remember when you're hand-holding it, it'll be
shaky-looking. It's acceptable to do occasionally but not too much.
(f) Equipment in Lucknow.
As I have offered already, we in Lucknow can spare a little equipment
should you find it necessary. The things I would consider getting
from Lucknow include: a camcorder, a wireless microphone, a video
digitizer. I was told that Shuvatara can send someone on a train and
bring back stuff in just a couple days. So keep this option in mind.