celtx – Integrated Media Pre-Production

celtx is an incredible piece of software. It will (or should) change the way that we do media projects with our learners. While I’m sure that many teachers have learners plan media projects out before doing them (ever try doing ad-lib with ESL students?), many others say “Go create!” This software provides a nice, intuitive framework to do the preparation necessary to create better projects and to structure the learning process to get more out of a project than the final product.

When I talk about media development, I’m referring to all sorts of media, from text to video to audio. This can be used well with expository/narrative/etc texts, screen/play-writing, audio/video (program) planning, and many other projects.

For language teachers, this process not only makes the production process better, but it also provides a great opportunity to structure the prep-work to accomplish language goals. The interactions and sub-production work (brainstorming, note taking, interviewing, script-writing, etc…) are where we, as teachers, should be focusing our attention. These tasks are where much of the designed learning should come from.

The biggest drawback of celtx is that it is only available to share in a propriety format (software is free, so I’m not complaining too much). So, you are going to have to have everyone involved load it on their machines. Not THAT much of a drawback, I guess.

Dan