“Focus on the Media Interaction”

Long gone are the days of popping in a video in the classroom for an extended period of time and calling it classroom instruction. To effectively integrate technology into the classroom whether it be a video, DVD, or a unitedstreamng tool, the buzz term is “Focus on the Media Interaction”. But what does that really look in the actual classroom. Using the snippets to jump start a lesson, watching a “Cyberchase” video and stopping, starting with intentional conversations that have students predicting the outcome of the scene, hypothesizing about a scenario or verifying responses to already posed questions are great examples of how to effectively use the video/dvd medium. Students watch on average 1680 minutes of television per week (Herr, California State). Imagine if they spent that same amount of time reading or having meaningful conversations with peers and other adults.
With Unitedstreaming, there are teacher guides that give you sample questions to use during your media interaction lessons. There are teacher guides available for almost all dvd's and video's in the classroom and if there is not one available then it is our job as educators to make certain we are effectively creating intentional conversations and dialogues for use with this type of medium.