This week I've been at the NMC conference (and Monday I was sidelined with a summer cold, no fun), so I've skipped out on most of this week's fslt12 activities. I've been thinking about this microteaching activity, and what I can teaching in 10 minutes. The activity reminds me of a reality TV show, the next Food Network Star, where contestants have to show that they can do something, in a short period of time (a promo video for their show) that they would be expanding on (supposedly) during the full episode.

So, what could I teach in 10 minutes? The big issue is that I am thinking too big! Then, it hit me! I could go back to my tech-training background and show people how to use the cameras in their iPhones. Sure, it's not super academic, but what if I were an assistant for DS106? DS106 has the Daily Create activity, where learners in DS106 (and interested participants) can use their phones to participate in this activity. So, here is a quick 10 minute lesson plan:

1. Greet learners (this would be a video tutorial, perhaps on YouTube) and let them know the agenda for this lesson, as well as the tools that we are going to be using (think of it like a cooking show where they list the ingredients before they start cooking). The materials for this are an iPhone, the camera application, the Safari Web Browser, and FlickIt, a Free Flickr Uploader application for the iPhone. (Time: 45sec -1 min)

2. This lesson pre-supposes that learners are taking part in DS106, or are interested in the daily create challenge. The first thing would be to open safari and navigate to http://tdc.ds106.us/ to receive the daily challenge topic. (Time: 1 min)

3. Once the topic of the day has been received, I will demonstrate how the learner can:

• Open the iPhone camera application
• Frame a shot
• Zoom in and our
• Focus the shor
• Take the shot

Side note: I was thinking about using Instagram for taking the photo, but the initial setup of the application could be a tutorial in and of itself :) (Time for this part: 3 minutes)

 

4. One a photo has been taken, it's time to show the learner how to upload it to flickr, and tag it with the appropriate Daily Create tag for that day's assignment (time: 3 minutes). This could include:

• Navigating to FlickIt
• Selecting the photo from the camera roll
• Telling Flickr that it's a public photo
• Assigning the photo a specific tag
• Uploading it

5. Final step: at the end of the day, check out the Daily Create website for fellow participant submissions!

 

The target demographic for this type of learning activity would be someone who is (1) interested in the daily create, and (2) someone like a parent or grandparent who "doesn't do technology" but is interested in participating in such fun activities.

 

The assessment, of course, would be whether the photo is up on the daily create or not :)