I enjoy writing for a blog, but I know better than to think that every student will - or even that every teacher will. I've always been a writer. I was a literature major most of my undergraduate years, and I taught literature to high school students, so it is natural that I prefer the written word as my medium of expression. However, I have colleagues who prefer listening to (and creating) podcasts and some readily admit they are auditory learners.
I don't have much of a commute myself and I prefer to uni-task when working, so I have difficulty finding time to listen to podcasts. And even though there is something of a performer in me, I've never been terribly motivated to create audio (or video) podcasts. It is very time consuming.
However, I recently created three hour-long videos for the
k12 Online Conference. It
was time consuming
and challenging for me, but regardless (or perhaps because of the challenge) I had a blast. Video can be a
fun medium. (Check out
Alton Brown's very fun - and very educational -
Good Eats on the Food Network for an excellent example.) My experience was what
Seymour Papert likes to call
hard fun.
This experience refocused my attention on a recent Internet phenomenon,
YouTube. According to the (hard to find)
about page, "YouTube is a place for people to engage in new ways with video by sharing, commenting on, and viewing videos." For several years now teachers have seen the benefit of downloading audio-visual instructional media from sites like
Atomic Learning and
United Streaming, but unlike these fee-based services, the free service at YouTube also allows teachers
and students to upload and share videos. This is a bit like
Blogger for visual learners.
It might take a little bit more work to find content that is related to educational goals, but I thought I'd search for material on the pyramids in Egypt, for example, and I quickly found several videos like these two bite-sized clips that will bring to life the
pyramids and the
sphinx for students around the world. Check out the shadow of the man walking next to the sphinx - or the camels on the ridge behind it for a sense of scale!
A quick
scholar search for articles on the use of video in education turned up
this literature review about "the use of digital video and iMovie in k12 schools." The focus is on "pedagogical issues relating to the process of learners capturing, editing, and generating their own digital video... on the 'student-genreation' of these artifacts and associated outcomes and support structures, rather than the actual digital video products per se."
This, and my own recent experience, reminded me of the powerful learning process required to create a video; students must master the content (in the same way we learn content best when we have to teach it), plan and storyboard their video, execute the recording (while paying attention to the shot frame, lighting, sound, and many other variables of cinematography), assemble and edit the final product (to efficiently achieve their purpose), and usually all the while working as a team with other students. Add to this the ability to share their creation online (via YouTube for example), and students now also have an authentic purpose and audience for their creation - not to mention it might actually benefit other students elsewhere. It's clear to me that asking students to create and share a video not only addresses content standards, but several
21st Century Skills as well. Best of all, it can be
hard fun.
Of course, video won't be for everyone either...
Craig Wherlock teaches English as a foreign language in Thessaloniki, Northern Greece, to 13- and 14-year-olds during the day and adults at night. He estimates that only 1-2% of homes in Greece have access to broadband, and recently read that only 27% of Greeks have ever even used the Internet--so while he would love to involve his students in podcasting or video sharing, it's only realistic to do blogging right now. And blogging his students do!
English. One of his most successful assignments was to ask each of the students to post "10 special things you have done that very few other people have done," for which he got very enthusiastic responses.
have an international "audience." A great place to learn about educational blogging ("edublogging") is at SupportBlogging.com, a collaborative wiki built by "edubloggers" themselves, and that lists (and allows you to search) over 300 blogs, websites, and articles on educational blogging.
