Digital+Media+Response

What creates a community?
For our unit on Natural Disasters, we will be exploring the Essential Question, "//What creates a community?//" Students will be using a range of IT software and programs to explore this question and respond accordingly.

There are so many ways that IT can be used to explore and respond to this this unit on Natural Disasters and more specifically Bushfires. Using the Assessment Model, IT can be planned as a FOR, AS or OF task.


 * FOR** - The teacher uses a video or podcast to inform the students about Bushfires.
 * AS** - The students create wikis, blogs, Wordles, Wallwishers (etc) to present their thoughts, ideas and research.
 * OF** - The students create movies, animations, podcasts or presentations to represent their research and learning. Students and teachers can also use technology such as spreadsheets, wikis, blogs to evaluate and reflect on the learning.



As a group, we decided to create a movie for our Digital Media Response. We decided to respond to the question by exploring the ways communities were affected by the Black Saturday Fires, and how they worked together to defend each other's homes and lives. We also explored the effect of people in a community lighting the fires and the negative effect this has on a community. Finally, we explored how a community can be supported by a wider community (Australia), forming a country community.

This movie could be used during the **OF** stage of the unit. Before creating the movie, we had to think about a story line, plan a story board and determine what roles we would play, what equipment we would bring, and where we would film it.



Students creating their own videos would work in groups of three or four. They would be responsible for picking an issue related to Bushfires and create a video to discuss those issues. Students would need to document all parts of the creating process. They could use Primary Pad or a Blog or Wiki to organize all their conversations.

We decided to make our movie based on a News Report happening two days after the Black Saturday Fires. First we had to write a script and storyboard the movie. After filming all the parts we needed in front of a green screen, we found the backgrounds we needed for the video. We used Adobe Premiere to edit the main video, and Adobe After Effects to make the intro. Below is the final version of our News Bulletin:

media type="youtube" key="jlW3RhelLnI" height="349" width="560" align="center"

Credits
In order of appearance:
 * News Reader** - Brooke Stevenson
 * Journalist** – Rachael White
 * CFA Captain** – Michelle Blume
 * Kevin Rudd** – Himself
 * DSE Consultant** – Stephanie McWilliam

Kevin Rudd appeared courtesy of Ten News Network

Black Saturday footage sourced from: - Seven News Network [] - ABC News Network [] - Ten News Network [] - CFA – Prepare Act Survive Ad [] - 3 News Network []

//Used for educational purposes only//