Debriefing session - 1B
Video
Transcript
Brendan: Now this idea [i.e., reference frames] I haven’t had a chance to tell you about. This information was not in the original animation. She never mentions that frequency’s measured in hertz, length is in centimetres. But I just thought if you were a teacher, which you’ve become little teachers by doing this project and you showed that to say a class or someone else, it might be handy to have details like that. But notice this player freezes on the last frame whereas some players just close down. This player actually freezes on the last frame. So some of you had important information that I’ve left in the last frame, like your one as well, where you had the umm, the three naming conventions and I left them on the screen. Others, there was no point but the ones that were important or relevant I called it a "Reference frame".
Hey have you every watched directors' commentaries on a DVD that you’ve hired?
Maria: No.
Molly: You can watch mine from last year.
Sunny: I have.
Brendan: Alright. I find it really interesting ‘cause it’s stuff you would never ordinarily know. You get inside the mind of the person who made it and that’s what this about…getting inside your mind.
Sunny: I have problems with that.
Brendan: What I was thinking is that the, the [weekly] directors' commentaries [later renamed student reflections] would be about the future…things you wanted to look into for the next week or whenever but almost all of your director’s commentaries started with "Today I did this, today I did that" which was not really future looking. It was more of a present thing where you talked about the day. How did you see the director’s commentaries? What did, what you think they were?
Magnus: I thought they were just were…I thought they were just…what…
Brendan: Like a recap?
Magnus: Yeah. Like that.
Ingrid: Just for an idea of what the director of the animation was thinking while he was making the animation.
Brendan: And why do you think, why do you think I might care about such things?
Magnus: For..for…
Brendan: ‘cause that’s one thing that’s new about this, that as I far as I know no one’s ever done, is try and ask people to do director’s commentary.
Magnus: For umm, reference, for later on to see how kids learn.
Brendan: Okay, good. Any other comments on the director’s commentary? Yep.
Ryan: Umm, I thought it was for recapping, ah, what you’d done on the day so then you could sort of look back and see what you’ve…how much of your work changed and what you were thinking when you said that.
Molly: Yeah.
Maria: It’s like. I thought it was like a recap of umm, of umm, all your work so that when you, you can look back at it and see the progress that you’ve made from the first time you actually did it.
Brendan: Do you realise how often you say umm?
Maria: Umm…(intentional)
Brendan: In your directors' commentaries there were so many umms. I kept some of them in there so you can still hear your personality come through but it was umm…I took a lot of them out. How do you feel about that? Do you think it was right of me to do that or probably…right or wrong or do you appreciate me doing that?
Maria: Umm…(unintentional)
(Group laughs)
Maria: Oh right! I just said 'Umm'. Right, umm…(Group laughs) I don’t really know. I don’t mind it and…
Brendan: Okay.
Maria: That’s really bad.
Brendan: Most people have an umm or two but there was, there was probably about 15 every time you did a director’s commentary. Which is, which is fine I’m just, I just wondered if you realised that?
Maria: Ah, no I didn’t.
Brendan: That’s the good thing about recording yourself that you can be a little bit more objective. Do you know what objective means?
Maria: Yep.
Brendan: To see it from someone else’s point of view.
Now there’s a thing in life called "Cognitive load" which means you’re overloaded with information and either you just zone out ‘cause you just like...you can’t understood. It’s too much information. And you’ve already, you’ve all experienced that before, I’m sure, I’m wondering how you feel when that happens. Does it overwhelm you or you just don’t stress about it ‘cause you know that you’ve still got years left of school and you’ll catch on, or any comments on cognitive load?
Magnus: Nah.
Ryan: I just laugh.
Brendan: So it doesn’t bother you?
Sunny: No, not at all.
Molly: Why is (beep) drawing a banana on his sheet?
Brendan: Don’t say people’s names.
Molly: Oh. I just…
Brendan: Why have you drawn a banana on your sheet?
Sunny: Umm, I don’t know. I was bored.
Molly: Is it a rainbow though?
Sunny: No, it’s nothing. Oh, it’s just somewhere to write my stuff.
Maria: So you write like this?
Sunny: I’m just going to write ‘round there and I was, I was…
Molly: You’re being very creative.
Sunny: I was thinking. I wasn’t bored, I’m never bored.
Maria: Oh yeah, right.
Molly: Oh I’m always bored.
Magnus: Never. Sometimes.
Ryan: I’m never bored.
Maria: I’m always bored.
Ingrid: I’m never bored because I’ve always got homework to do.
Researcher reflection: I’m glad to see that I gave the children more of an opportunity to speak. I felt a little mean asking Maria about saying "Umm" as I can see that she started to blush a little bit. She is a very confident and popular girl so I know she wouldn’t have lost any sleep over this.
When I mentioned "cognitive load" I should really have said "overload" because "load" is just the variable under discussion.
Some interesting discussion came out about the issue of being bored as it seems to polarise most of the children as being "never bored" or "always bored". Personally, I’m in the never bored category.