Administrators, teachers and librarians in Mid-Del Schools at Steed Elementary (just east of Oklahoma City) created the following 14 minute video as a motivational tool for students “buckling down” for standardized testing this week in Oklahoma. The “testing window” opened on Tuesday, April 10th. Mid-Del’s new Superintendent of Schools, Dr. Pam Deering, portrayed the “commanding general” in the video. Dr. Deering is married to Maj. Gen. Myles Deering, the adjutant general for the Oklahoma National Guard, and appears in the opening scene of the video.
This video is definitely a good example of educator creativity, but I think it’s thought provoking to contrast the tone with the May 2011 video from Steed Elementary students and teachers, “Gotta Keep Learning.”
High stakes testing has a powerful influence on the focus and tone of education in our public schools, especially in April.
Kudos to Regina Hartley and other educators at Steed modeling videography and digital literacy literacy skills in our “season” of high stakes testing in Oklahoma. See my May 2011 post, “Gotta Keep Learning! Video Remix by Steed Elementary Students in Oklahoma” for more background about the ways Mid-Del teachers and students are learning to be effective multimedia communicators. Can you tell “there are a few Storychasers in the house” at Steed?!
Technorati Tags: oklahoma, testing, video, youtube, middel, steed
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On this day..
- Learn About Coding & Minecraft: Saturday April 18 at PLAYDATE OKC (free!) - 2015
- Kids Teaching Kids by Eric Marcos - 2012
- Great Educational Ideas from TEDxNYED - 2012
- Hands-on Introduction to Mobile Learning App/Game Creation for Non-Programmers - 2012
- Application of OBTE Principles by Randal Wickman - 2011
- Military Development at West Point by Col Casey Haskins - 2011
- Tony Wagner discussing learning at the 2011 Intellectual Warrior's Conference - 2011
- Social, economic and cultural commentary via remixed multimedia: Meet DJ Spooky - 2010
- Understanding Race to the Top and the Obama Education Reform Agenda (deja vu, GW Bush) - 2010
- Scrape blogs: A mildly dark (and certainly irritating) side of open content licensing - 2010
Just wait, Wes! We’ve got another one in the works. 😀 The kids love the testing one so much they have asked me to play it for them several times. Then they ask when they get to do theirs!
FYI, Oklahoma history was just shifted down to 3rd grade, so I have plans for next year!