Cassidy's+Candor

=How do we develop sustainable workflow for using video to capture learning in the classroom?=


 * Grade One - Kathy Cassidy**

My students all have their own blogs, which are online portfolios of their learning over the course of the year. On these blogs, I want them to be able to include video that showd their individual learning in a variety of subject areas. Since I have promised the parents of my students that I will not identify the students on their blogs, this means that their faces cannot appear in the video.

I want my students to be able to use a digital video camera to record each other showing their learning in a variety of ways. Ideally, I would like them to be able to do this independently (meaning that they can do it themselves as I work with other students). I am wondering if it is possible to have them upload the video themselves as well.

A grade two teacher in our school division had been recording her students and putting the resulting videos on our school division's video server. I approached her and discussed her workflow, as well as her tagging system to enable the students to retrieve the video and post it on their blogs.

During the course of several weeks, I tried various ways for the students to show what they had learned including common craft-type explanations, puppets, shadows, math manipulatives and other artifacts. The students worked in pairs who took turns being the "explainer" and the "videotaper".

1. At first, I had the students who were ready to use the video camera do their videotaping in the hallway away from the bustle of the classroom. During that initial session, I realized how much the students learned from watching each other explain their learning, and we began taking turns in a whole group session. 2. Tagging is important! We tagged the videos with the name of the student followed by a classroom code that allowed the students to easily search the video server for their own videos, and thus find the embed code to use for posting their video to their blog. 3. I tried several times to have the students do the uploading of the videos to my school division's server. I chose to use "experts" to do this. These experts were able to work together to do this successfully, but even after practice, it was a very slow process. Another difficulty was that the experts sometimes spelled a name incorrectly in the tagging process. This caused chaos when a student tried to find their video to post. In the end, it seemed to be better time management if I uploaded them myself. 4. The students are very visual and love being able to have the video they have made posted on their blogs. Their parents also like to be able to watch their child "in action". 5. There are limitless ways that video can be used to show learning, even if the child's face is not shown.
 * Some things I learned:**

Currently, when we are making videos about our individual learning, the students first spend some time deciding what they will say/do, and gathering any materials that they will need. This only takes a few minutes. Then, all of the students sit in a circle or off to the side, and pairs of students take turns being the camera person or the star of the show. The other students watch their classmates explaining and then take their own turn. I sit beside the camera person, helping if necessary and reminding them not to film each other's faces.
 * How We Do It in My Classroom**

This video project is ongoing in my classroom, and will continue next year. I look forward to continuing to learn more about this with my students.

Examples of the types of videos done my my grade one students can be viewed below.

**Common Craft Style - Needs vs Wants**
media type="youtube" key="C2FNBvnr-PQ?rel=0" height="349" width="560"

**Puppet Show**
media type="youtube" key="ixsX6fTxRzs?rel=0" height="349" width="560"

**Student Explains as Camera Focuses on Artifact - Washing Hands**
media type="youtube" key="U-jVCHlq5MY?rel=0" height="349" width="560"

**Shadows - A Shadow Cat**
media type="youtube" key="vfCTgPgpvaQ?rel=0" height="349" width="560"

**Using Manipulatives - Addition Strategy**
media type="youtube" key="nkpEbV0djnU?rel=0" height="349" width="560"