One of the briefest, yet most interesting units that I did with my 7th grade Life Science class was "Biomes". The unit was very short, and served as a launch point for a bigger inter-disciplinary project that all the 7th grade students did at once. There is a factual aspect of this unit, as well as a strong visual component that I do not think we incorporate enough. My goal is to enhance this unit, which lasts barely a week, and use technology to increase student interest. As Daley wrote in her article, "...our shared experiences as human beings are more often than not derived from the images and sounds that exist on screen" (2003, p.2). By bringing to life 2D text, and using already created imagery as inspiration, I believe "Biomes" could be worlds more dynamic.
My first attempts to engage students in the Biomes unit was by showing videos from the Planet Earth series by BBC. I think that this series captures the true raw, beauty of this planet and allows the students to see beyond the walls of the classroom. Rune Pettersson wrote, "It is difficult to describe verbally a concept that is primarily nonverbal" (2009, p. 38), which I do believe applies to the appreciation of the beauty of nature. The students really enjoyed watching the videos, but my goal is to make something that is even more tangible through poems that students will share with each other across an interactive space, picture montages with programs like Photo Story (perhaps even Power point!), and ultimately ending the year with students' video summaries of their trip to the Bronx Zoo (this was a class trip that the 7th grade did every year) and what information they gathered about animals' biomes, and scientific names.
Pettersson's quote, "Academic disciplines are not all cast in steel" (2009, p.38), resonated with me, and it is something I have always felt passionate about. There is no law that says creative writing and animated pictorial representations cannot be applied in a science class, I believe that this is my chance to re-invent an "old school" mini unit that I used to do. In order to faciltiate this, I have joined two Thinkfinity groups: Using Multimedia for Communication & Education and Online Tools for Educators. I think these two sites will afford me the help with better understanding multimedia literacy as well as the proper tools to use.
I am still searching for an outside community, but as of right now, I plan to use a discussion board that I began in my previous course: Mrs. Cella's Bio 101 Discussion Board. It is attractive looking, easy to use, and allows for a great deal of privacy and moderation ... please excuse its current appearance, it will change for this project.
Yay for the first post of the semester! I'm pretty excited to get going in this class. For my first blog post of Spring 2012, I chose to critique the Chrysler commercial with Eminem. I really like Eminem's music, and even though he has an explicit rating on his CD covers, I find his lyrics and messages to be honest. He doesn't try to be anyone else but himself. This commercial is one of my favorite ...
What is the purpose of this commercial? I think one of the main purposes is to empower the owners of cars not necessarily deemed "luxury" (ie. Mercedes Benz, BMW, Lexus, Audi). The commercial's honest and real snippets of the Motor City are stripped down, and raw, and this gives me a feeling that not only is the goal to empower the average car owner, but also to restore some of Detroit's dignity. When people hear Detroit, if the first thing that comes to mind is not a sports team then it is probably Motown music and a really run-down, tough neighborhood. In this commercial we are given an honest, true image of the city. There is not facade, or false version of reality. There seems to be only truth.
If the purpose is to empower average Joe, then the audience is certainly those of us who drive Fords, Toyotas, and "average" cars. The commercial tells them that they don't have to own an official luxury car in order to convey an image of opulence. There is some part of the commercial that calls out to the luxury car owners, almost as if to dare them to own a car that's this "average" yet classy. We see this commercial through the eyes of someone that has been "to hell and back". They didn't hire someone from Beverly Hills to represent their product, instead the advertisers turned to someone that grew up on the streets of Detroit. Again, the idea of conveying a sense of reality comes into play. The commercial would be fake for someone that has never lived in Detroit to try to sell one of its products; it wouldn't be authentic -- as indicated when the commercial says, "the one [city] being written about by people that have never even been here".
To make the commercial real, they portrayed real people. The faces that the camera captures while taking in the scenery are the people represented in the commercial. It's about the working class citizen that is rising up and out of a depressed city. Those that are not heard are the rich, and the famous. Those with millions of dollars. In some ways I feel like Chrysler was trying to reach out to hard working Americans, and silence the small percent of Americans that can live lavishly. We get a strong sense of this when the voice over says "Now we're from America, but this isn't New York City, or the Windy City, nor Sin City ..." Those that were chosen to be represented were selected in order to break a stereotype: not everything that comes out of Detroit is trash, or what people have stereotyped it to be.
The most important design decisions were the various scenes to capture with the camera. It was important to portray Detroit in a real way, and to show the hard working America, but at the same time it probably would not benefit the product to show an alley with trash everywhere or a gang. Using scenes actually FROM Detroit was also a great place to start! I think the music was the most vital aspect. The song used was Eminem's big hit "Lose Yourself", which was his anthem for rising to the top. It was also in his movie "8 Mile" that depicted his life in Detroit, and how he got out. If they had used the track as it was originally recorded, the rapping and the swearing would have certainly turned off a good number of people, but the choral arrangement added a new dimension. The beginning of the song was recognizable enough, but at the same time it added a dramatic effect, and sounded more like a soundtrack. Without this specific medium -- video commercial -- the ad would have lost many of its dimensions: the visual aspect, married with the voice over and the underlying Eminem song.
On a side note, one lagging thought that kept pulling at my mind was what if luxury car owners was a bigger audience than I had estimated them to be? What if they were the target? Gentrification seems to be like a fad these days, and those with the money are the ones revamping the cities and turning them on their heads, building them back up. I wonder if the commercial was also a ploy to draw people back to Detroit in order to help gentrify it and rejuvenate a struggling city? Just a thought ...
The official music video of the Selected of God Choir, from the Chrysler commercial.
an abbreviated version of the commercial with the same general message
