Videos are
probably the most underused tool in classrooms, both when it comes to meaningful consumption and production. Particularly the latter is hardly ever used by
teachers as they assume the technological level required to create videos is
simply too high. However, with the introduction of smartphones and simple free
editing tools making videos has become as easy as writing a text in a word
processing application and putting it on the web has become a piece of cake
with video sharing sites such as vimeo, facebook or the most popular among them
all, YouTube.
Before you
use YouTube for video projects you should familiarize yourself with it features
such as channels, upload options and editing.
When you know where and how the
students can upload their videos you are ready to go.
You can
produce videos for:
Video
podcasts: have the students produce short (2 min.) videos of themselves talking
about any topic you would like to discuss in class. It is not necessary to show
them all in class, preferably only the best ones. Some students do not feel at
ease anyway when their videos are shown in class.
Educasts:
The students produce a video that teaches (their classmates/younger students –
peer teaching) how to do something. They could make a tutorial on how to tune a
guitar or how to cook a
certain dish.
Screencasts:
Students choose a software/web 2.0 tool which they would like to show their
classmates. Here is an example on how to create a video slideshow. There
are a number of free screencasting
(recording) tools such as camstudio and jing
as well as a host of free web 2.0 tools (e.g. http://www.screenr.com/)
Documenting
projects: students use their mobile phones to document a project they are
working on. If they work on a bigger
project they could even create a “making of” video.
Documenting
field trips. Students usually complain when you take pictures/video of them
during field trip, but they love watching them later. Here is an example from a
trip to London.
Interviews:
Doing interviews on various topics with their parents/grandparents, conducting a survey among
passer-bys, or interviewing their host parents on a language trip.
Short
features: creating short (3 min.) feature films on serious topics like “safer internet” or xenophobia. Or simply a
fun video where the content does not matter (e.g. a foreign language project).
Animations:
there a lot of great animation tools such as Flash and After Effects which are
available to very few schools only due to their high cost. However, there are
also some easily available programmes with which you can create animations (and
record with screencasting software) such as MS PowerPoint or the free Prezi as
well as specialized free Web 2.0 animation tools (e.g. http://goanimate.com/).
Many
teachers might wonder what they could use animations for. Very simple: creating
short and simple stories or an animated Xmas
card. If that doesn’t sound like learning to you, then the students could
create animated vocabulary that complies with the curriculum. In my project “video vocab for hospitality
jobs” the students had the task to animate their own curriculum-related “dialogues”
and explain the vocabulary used.
Stopmotion: can be used for the same purposes as animations without animation software, just using a still camera or a webcam.
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