3.7 CD Storage

How is disk storage useful to teachers and students?

Because we have moved out of the Industrial Age into the Information Age, the ability to store information has assumed a role of primacy. Even though we tend to think of digital storage in the context of business, it is of great importance in all areas. Teaching dance calls for memorization of movements and terms unique in their definitions to dance lingo. At any age, this undertaking asks a lot of students and teachers. For the kindergarten teachers and for special needs teachers, it can be a particularly hard job, one that requires many repetitious sessions of showing and explaining. Disk storage will help the students and the teachers over this hurdle. Jenny Ignacio and Carly Alsbach, Resource Teachers of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, along with Elaine Wrenn, Technology Coordinator at Echo Horizon School in Culver City, California, have found (2003). They began with practice sessions of the students reciting terms, such as “Balance, Burst, Flex, Gallop, Jump, Leap, Stretch, Twirl, Wiggle, Bent, Round, Tilted, and Twisted.” After they have spoken the terms, they do the corresponding movements. At this point, disk storage comes into play. The teachers described their innovative approach as encompassing these steps:

They [the students] are videotaped demonstrating the movements and shapes. The students then work with the teacher to create a movie in iMovie with captions and narration. Using iDVD, the video is broken into segments and placed on a DVD so that other students and their teachers can pull up demonstrations of individual terms. Students can also use the video to quiz themselves on the various terms. The process of creating the video gives students the opportunity to learn the vocabulary, to practice their speech, and to serve as experts to their peers.

The teachers note that, as with all such projects, the importance of storyboarding cannot be overemphasized. It is a dress rehearsal, so to speak, to clear up any glitches before they are ready to film.

Other disk storage is used routinely, keeping HTML files and digital file formats like JPEGs and GIFs with diskettes or by burning a CD. Disk storage is also adaptable for storing PDF files, Jeffrey Branzburg noted (2003). Once on disk, they can be distributed, and they can be, as he says they do in his school, post them on the school web site.

Activity:

Search online lesson plans to discover the ways teachers are using disk storage in their classrooms. Create a table that includes three columns—one for hard disk, one for CDs, and one for DVDs. Complete the table by filling in rows under each column with the ways you have found teachers using each of these storage disks. Find at least three examples for each type. Share your table with the class.

Want to know more? Check out these sites:

http://www.k12.hi.us/~manage/backup.htm

http://www.apple.com/education

http://helenbarrett.com/ALI/samples.html

http://www.mehs.educ.state.ak.us/portfolios/portfolio.html

http://www.grossmont.k12.ca.us

http://www.ma.iup.edu/students

Ignacio, J., Alsbach, C., & Wrenn, E. 2003, March. We can dance! Retrieved May 16, 2003, from www.apple.com/education.

Branzburg, J. 2003. How to create PDF files. Technology & Learning (May), 41.