Conservation Video

Ideas for my VIDEO

In a few of my classes I've watched a video of the same experiment. The concept for this experiment is Piaget's theory of conservation. This is commonly demonstrated by two beakers of water, same size and shape, and same amount of water. An adult asks a child (around age 4) which one has more water. They answer, "they have the same." Then the adult pours one beaker of water into another beaker, taller and skinnier. When asked which has more, the child thinks the taller beaker has more water. Thus showing their inability to conserve. There's a few more mini experiments that show this too. All the videos I've seen are pretty outdated so I thought it would be nice to remake the video and modernize it. I'm going to use my little sister to videotape the experiment. I'll do the beaker experiment and one more involving pennies. Then I'll use iMovie to edit the content and make it professional- hopefully.

Videos in the Classroom

My subject is Family and Consumer Science and when I think of the videos I watched in my home ec classes all I can remember are boring instructional videos thirty years old. I think I could utilize videos better in my own classroom. For example, I could show clips of how fashion and home economics is relatable to my students. To give my old teachers credit, instructional videos would be very helpful to show a cooking class or a sewing class. But instead of using the old cooking shows, I could show something more modern that would interest my students more.

I think videos are fun and helpful in the classroom but you have to use them right- and put them with the right assignment to make it beneficial.

Of Course it Can't Be Easy

When I started working on my project I began to explore Photoshop to try and create shapes, rearrange, change colors, etc. However, the layers just got in the way. I couldn't create a basic floorplan (that students wouldn't alter) and then add shapes which could be manipulated for the assignment. (NOTE: I recognize that there is probably a way around this but I feel like that would be more complicated than the lesson is worth.) My dad suggested that I try the Pages program on Mac. He said it's a little more simple and you can manipulate objects fairly easy. Since I'm such a beginner with technology I think it's probably best to start learning with the basics of Pages and then progress to Photoshop. Problem avoided.

However, I've been working in Pages and have run into a few glitches. One of these is that I'm trying to draw a door symbol on my floorplan and it's not working out. This is a symbol used in design so it's not one of the basic shapes to choose from. It's essentially a triangle with one rounded edge and I can't seem to figure out how to get it looking right. I'm trying a few different things I've found and have gotten it a little closer but it still looks a little homemade.