First off, I want to express how happy and excited I am to have Lumi as another tool to add to my technology toolbox! I have experimented with other applications that enabled me to create interactive activities such as Edpuzzle and Formative, but I have also
enjoyed my experience using Lumi. While it took some navigating, I found it to be quite user-friendly, but I also feel I have just scratched the surface of Lumi with the creation of this video. I am looking forward to further exploration of all its tools and activities.
For this assignment, I am creating a lesson for a course about Identity through the study of the novel The Outsiders. The lesson is an introduction to the author and the time and place in which the novel is set. The purpose of this lesson is to give the students some context and understanding of the setting of the novel. Knowing about the time and pace of a story gives a reader insight into the actions, emotions, and thinking of characters. It provides cultural and social contexts and helps the reader understand the mood, themes, and plots of the story. I also believe that knowledge of the author and his/her process and thinking gives students insight into the motivation and inspiration that goes into the writing of a story. This helps readers see a story through the author’s eyes and experiences that often influence their writing.
The interactive video I created with Lumi is a Fox News interview with S.E. Hinton, the author of The Outsiders, celebrating the 50th anniversary of the novel. In the interview, 
the interviewer and Hinton discuss the history and motivation behind writing the story. I chose this video because the author discusses some of the setting contexts of the story and the inspiration behind the writing. The interview gives us a glance into life in 1960s through the author’s eyes, which she transferred into the plot of the novel. The interview also discusses the fact that Hinton wrote this novel as a teenager in high school, which enables the students to make connections to the story realizing that it was written by someone close to them in age. This video helps to set the stage for the novel study by putting a face, voice, and person behind the name of the author on the cover of the novel.
Before I started creating the interactive video, I perused the various features of Lumi and practiced adding them to the uploaded video. From this exploration and preview of the video I was using, I decided to add true/false questions, a video link to a video about social classes in the United States (as it relates to the setting context of the novel), a link to a list of Top 100 Young Adult Fiction books (The Outsiders is deemed as one of the first novels of YA fiction), and a video summary at the end. I added a variety of features to keep my students engaged in the video. The video link was added to provide more information about the social climate of the setting of the novel, and the booklist link was added to peak the interest level of my students in other possible YA fiction they may want to explore.
Top 21 Best Young Adult Books of Each Year (2000-2020)
As I was adding features to the video, I became much more confident and comfortable with the Lumi format.
However, I did find the timing of the features a bit tricky and an area I need to work on. I think this could be solved with a more detailed preview of the videos and writing down the timeframes of where each feature would fit into the video prior to building the features. The other aspect I am still sorting out is adding features as a poster. I found the sizing and placement seemed a bit off and weren’t as aesthetically pleasing as the button feature. I am sure as I work with Lumi more, I will find ways to address the issues of timing and the placement and sizing of a poster option.
Lumi is definitely on the list of technology applications I will be using in the future. Here is a link to my first attempt. Feedback is more than welcome!
wonderful post looking forward to see more on your blog post. Thank you for sharing this insightful blog post. Your perspective on the topic is thought-provoking, and I appreciate the way you presented the information. I particularly resonated with the use of technology adding lots of online platforms .
This sounds great, Tammy. I love The Outsiders! Always have. I found the size formatting of the poster feature to also be a bit of an obstacle but I chose to use it versus the icon for accessibility reasons (stopping the video to focus on one task and the screen reader being able to read it).
Do you plan to use any video clips from the movie to supplement the reading of the novel? Novel study was one of the first places I thought of using Lumi and how if you selected a novel that had an accompanying film you could use it to create visual elements for your learning. It also gives some sneak peaks into the film if you’re going to show it once you’ve finished reading the book.
Hi RoxAnne! Yeah, I think I will have to play with poster feature in Lumi a bit more. I can see how it can make things more accessible for students. I usually watch the movie with the class at the end of the novel study, but I like your idea of using it supplement the reading of the novel. I may see how I can do that with Lumi! Thanks for the idea!
Hi, Tammy! I thought your Lumi was a great example of a purposeful use of technology in the classroom! I also taught The Outsiders for a couple of years but I never found this video clip! I think it is great for, as you say, setting up the historical context of the period!
I also didn’t realize that you could also embed video links via Lumi! That is a great application of the program.
Thanks Kayla! I enjoyed using Lumi and found the different features a good way to get my students to interact with the video. I liked being able to embed another video to add more context to what was being discussed in the interview. I figured it would benefit my students to have some understanding of the class system as it is part of the conflict in the novel.