Digital Images and Online Data Reflection

So I've been on a research boat with no internet for a week and I'm a bit behind.   Please be patient with my latest rant....

I get aggravated when I see my fellow teachers, (most of whom I respect and adore), showing random videos in their classes, saying things like, "Well, there is biology/history/chemistry in this film.", and they show the entire movie of Avitar/The Patriot/Fern Gully for several days.  Ok, I like these movies, no, I love Avitar, but come on now, we are obviously wasting time here.  It would be so much more effective to show clips of the pertinent parts of films that actually line up with a concept framed within a lesson.  Short clips, that can be discussed before and after viewing would be a much better use of class time.  Students can and do watch films on their own.  What is the point of showing the whole thing?
Now that I've gotten that off my chest, here is my dilemma:  How do I get these clips?  Just putting the DVD into the player/computer and searching for the particular part or worse-- parts, is time consuming.  In fact, students will immediately start in on wanting to see the whole film while I'm doing my hunt.  I want just the clips available, so there is no hunting and no discussion about watching the film in its entirety.
I have the same sort of issue with PowerPoint lessons.  Cute pictures and funny clip art can add humor and perhaps there is a trade off there. Humor helps learning, but too much can be a distraction.  I agree with the authors in that the time I spend looking for cute/funny pictures to "spice up" my PowerPoint could be better used looking for pictures or videos that actually connect the concepts; pictures with purpose clarify and connect. I think having pictures that students have taken would also bring relevance to the lesson.  For example: asking students to bring in a picture of a physical or chemical change and assembling them into an Animoto would be so much more effective that the boring 'here's what physical and chemical changes are and look like' PowerPoint 
This section of the book has made me rethink my labs as well.  I think I will work on making videos demonstrating lab techniques and lab equipment set ups.  I have used, in the past, a picture showing what the lab station should look like after the lab is cleaned up.  I think I will take it a step further, now, and make short videos of the particular lab techniques students are supposed to be learning, using the equipment we actually have on hand.  Another idea is to make a set of safety hazard videos that could be put together to show the safety hazards for the particular lab we are doing.  Sort of a quick snippet before lab starts.  It would also make sure I didn't leave any important safety instruction out for each class, and I really like that.  Perhaps even a whole safety video done at the beginning of the year by the AP students would help keep lab safety on our minds.  I actually have a skit somewhere, that I used to have my AP students from the previous year come back and do for my new first year students.  It was fun, but pretty time-consuming for them and me.

I don't know why I didn't think of this, but asking students to look for the reason a picture is presented to them makes sense.  The textbook pictures could easily be used this way and made more beneficial.  I think it is true that students often just look at the pictures for the aesthetic value and not what the picture is trying to convey.  Learning how to include JCE videos in my lessons would be great, but again, I don't want to be messing around during class looking for the demos or animations.  Also, I don't like using "cool" demos just because they are "cool" and get attention for the sake of getting attention.  They need to be tied directly to what the lesson is over.  My time with students is so precious, I want to waste as little as possible.
Granted, sometimes, during a grading crunch, I will be tempted to put in a chemistry video or try an online chemistry lecture during class, but inevitably, it doesn't really benefit anyone.  Students are either bored and off task during the video or I have to reteach whatever the lesson was because they didn't get any part of it.  Perhaps if I spent time before-setting the stage so to speak and after, summing it up, they would get more out of it.
I really like the screen capture of Logger Pro.  I could use that to demonstrate what the graph vs color change  look like in a titration lab. I'm hoping I can get the same effect with the LabQuest since the students will be using them most often.  That makes me think of another idea: taking pictures of my students while they are doing labs and putting them together in an Animoto for next year's group. That would be fun! (I did a PowerPoint of the hot air balloons we've done over the years, added music and everything.  It was ridiculously time-consuming and difficult for me. The Animoto was about the easiest thing I've ever worked with, so I'll be doing a lot more with it I think.)
After spending time this year with the scientists at the Horn Point Laboratory in Cambridge, MD and on their research vessel, I'm more knowledgeable about the kind of data I could use in the classroom.  I helped gather data on the water quality, oxygen levels, and organisms and their nutrients in the Chesapeake Bay.  I'm sure the same data is available on Gulf of Mexico, which would be more relevant to my students.  I'm sure I can find it from GLOBE or NOAA.  And TrackStar sounds like a great way to organize the websites students need to visit to find the data.  I will be checking that out.
Using real world data for a topic I have had experience with, I think, will help me get over that "inquiry wall" that I always seem to run into every year.  I think my confidence in using data gathered on the water quality of the Gulf will bring the students over the wall as well.  Hmmm, I think I see a scientific argument forming....