Week Eight: Caught on Video

Read Bob Sprankle's Blog post titled Caught of Video

I really like Mr. Sprankle's ideas for using a Flip video camera in the classroom. I think my favourite was #5: film students asking questions at the beginning of the unit and the same students answering the questions at the end of the unit. This really shows to both the students and the teacher that the students are learning.

I also liked the comment about how it can be really powerful to show what a student has done without adding an interpretation to it. It's so easy to put your own spin on a situation that having concrete, this-is-what-actually-happened evidence is really valuable.

I'm a little bit scared of his comment that the more teachers use this kind of technology, them more students and parents are going to expect them to be used regularly. It's so cool, yet so daunting! If sounds like a lot of work, but if we could use this tangible grading as evidence we might be able to eliminate other pointless forms and it would become easier and ever more valuable.

There was a little bit about how a student could use a clip of herself doing well as encouragement in the future. I have often heard people encourage a visit to the past via a project or a letter or a card or whatever to encourage in the moment of discouragement. This could be really powerful. (But think of all the space that would be needed to save it all!) It also makes me think of how timeless it could be. A video has so much more weight than an A+. Who cares about that? What does it really mean anyway? It doesn't demonstrate learning; it demonstrates settling. I have even come to the point where the grade doesn't matter--if I'm passing that's good enough for me. I know that there is more to me than any test or paper and there is more to the teacher than that one moment in grading. If I could see how I have grown and learned over the years, now that would be something. And I might care a little bit more--I'd have something to show for my efforts.

PS If I am remembering correctly, I believe a friend told me that NU has Flip cams that we could test out...