Tag Archives: production

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Movie Trailers

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Suspicious JoeyTo round out three years of ICT & Media studies, I recently asked my Year 9 students to study the art of movie making (you might have seen our Zombiefest work, which was a practice exercise for the students). As their final piece of work, students had to produce a trailer for a fictional film. Whilst the trailers were produced individually, they were based on a collective set of scenes which students designed, scripted and shot themselves. The result is an unusual combination of individual and collaborative, with some crazy results.

Presented below are the three best videos, by Coco, Emma and Owen (congratulations ; ): I thought the students did a great job, and any areas where things are a little rough around the edges can be blamed on the teacher for not giving enough time.

Credit: Thumbnail image of Suspicious Joey shared by students 9.1 under CC BY-NC-SA. Thanks to CogDog for introducing me to digital storytelling, narrative and so much more.

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What $8499 Bought in 1989

http://www.stephenbailey.com/technology/what-8499…

Most people know that the price of computer technology is falling. However, many people do not fully understand the scope of this change. This article shows a top-of-the-line PC from 1989, priced at USD $8,499. Working from this article, students can be asked to consider many questions including “Why are prices dropping?”, “What are the social, environmental and business implications of these changes?”, “Why have the price of, say, cars, not dropped to the same extent”.

Another possible avenue for discussion is the fact that USD $8,499 was worth significantly more in 1989 than it is now (depending on the calculation method used, it is worth between USD $14,700 and $22,100 in today’s money).

Amusingly, the price includes neither the monitor, nor the mouse, making it quite unusable.

Other Resources

The Numbers Behind China

http://www.onlineschools.org/blog/china/

Interesting facts about China, focusing on industrial output, food production and consumption, and military capability. As this piece is presented from a US perspective, it can be interesting for students to consider how bias comes into play when using statistics to tell a story. Generally this piece seems fairly neutral, but it is possible to imagine it otherwise.