As part of our Media for Children and Young Adults class, I ask each student to create a YA book trailer as a podcast or videocast.  I point them to a few samples, then they can choose the software and hosting platform that works for them.  I intentionally leave this open, don’t demo different softwares, etc., because I want them to know what it’s like to be in the field and figure these things out. I’m available to help if they get stuck (and some do).

Jamie asked if she could do kinetic typography.  I had never heard of this, but it’s essentially a graphic design technique that lets words flow across the page in various colors, fonts, angles, and speeds.  After week 1, she was halfway done but had given 12 hours to the cause.  Undaunted, she continued for week 2 until she had invested nearly 25 hours in it!

You can see her awesome results here. 

Here’s what I learned from this experience: had I mandated any particular software or approach, or had I turned down her idea, I bet she never would have spent all that time on the project.  But by being open to her approach, she learned something she wanted to learn, as did the rest of the class, and the product is just great. 

This is what the 21st-century scholars are talking about when they suggest choice in products.  When we can give students options for how to express themselves (within reason, of course — I probably would have said no if she had asked to stand out on the Diag and mime the book talk), motivation goes up, and, by correlation, so does the work.

(PS -for a simplified book talk strategy, visit http://booktalksampler.wikispaces.com to see the resources we used to create podcast book talks last weekend at the Sam Houston Book Festival — more on that to come!)

This entry was posted on Monday, November 16th, 2009 at 7:33 am and is filed under Promotion/PR, Books. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.