In my Language Arts class, we had to reflect on a theme from a novel study that we completed. I read the novel Crenshaw by Katherine Applegate and one of the major themes in the story was family. I chose to take this theme and use it for my reflection because family is extremely important to me, just as it was for the main character in the novel.
To reflect on the theme family, I made a compilation video of media that include my closest family members.
Completing a teachable in Media Studies in my undergraduate degree has opened my eyes to all things media. Throughout my media courses, I had the opportunity to make many videos. I really enjoyed creating them and was excited about completing the assignments. This is because they could be done in an untraditional style of assignment for university. Creating a short film is more exciting to me than writing a research paper. I feel that being excited about completing assignments contributed to my success of these assignments because I put a lot of energy into them as they were fun and creative. This is why I want to bring more creativity and media assignments into my teaching because I think that many students may have similar experiences as me.
Here is a video that I created with my friend for a course in my undergraduate degree:
During my placement in November and December, I had my students create an advertisement based on the content we were covering in health: reading food package labels. We reviewed reading food package labels in health class and in media literacy class we looked at advertising (different forms) and what goes into advertisements (the 5 P’s). I decided to create a cross-curricular project for them to complete tying the two subjects together. The students were to create an advertisement using a food package that they brought in. They had the choice of creating a radio ad (voice recording), television/internet ad (video recording), a poster, or an infographic using ThingLink. One partnership of students made an infographic and the rest created video advertisements. They used the school’s iPads to complete their advertisements and then uploaded them to their Google Drive and shared them with me. The students were very excited about completing this project and had a lot of fun doing so. I was very impressed with some of the end products! Some students put a lot of thought into their advertisements and even edited it on iMovie to include images in addition to their video recordings.
Recording videos can very easily be completed cross-curricular. Here are a few examples of how students could be using video recording in other subject areas:
- Math: record thinking of a math problem
- Reading: digital storytelling (record as reading a story)
- Writing: record student reading a story they wrote
- Health: food advertisements
- Science: inquiry project
- Gym: demonstrating a certain exercise or game
- Drama: record a play
The Ontario Language Arts Curriculum talks about recording video in the Media Literacy strand, starting in grade three. Depending on the skill level of the students, there certainly is potential that video recording could be done prior to grade three. With the growing popularity of technological devices, it is likely that many students will have devices at home they have tinkered and played with, recording videos, and more!
There are different ways that video recording can be done in classrooms. Some of the ways include learning product videos, response videos, reflection videos, and tutorial videos (from Edutopia). When students use technological devices to record videos, they are using STEM which is commonly found in schools presently. Allowing students to video record school work can provide them with excitement, but also reach the students who have difficulty explaining their thinking by writing. They can communicate their ideas effectively by speaking into their video recording and visually record their work or what they are doing. If they are recording a video in a group, it provides students with the opportunity to collaborate and engage in effective communication with their peers.
Using video recording in schools also opens up the door for educating students on safe use of media and recording videos. It is important that students understand the safety of what they record, how they record, who they record, and especially what they do with the recording after it is complete. Depending on the purpose of the video recording assignment, the final products may or may not have the purpose of being shared beyond the walls of the classroom. A perk of using video recordings in classes is that they can be easily shared beyond the walls of the classroom (to admin, other teachers, parents, community partners, etc.). It is important to have parental permission to record student’s faces in the videos (depending on the school boards requirements). Keeping the security of students should be up utmost importance when recording children. As the students get older, teachers can educate their students on developing a public persona and what that means. Talking about media safety, critically evaluating media, and safe use of media is important, especially when creating videos.
Some other resources to check out when using video recording in classrooms:
- Lights, Camera… Engagement!
- How Video Can Help Students and Teachers, Learn
- Teaching Strategies: Benefits of Student Video Creation
- Benefits for Teachers using Educational Video in the Classroom
- 6 Pros and Cons of Video Learning
- Benefits of Video in the Digital Classroom
- Benefits for Teacher Using Video in the Classroom
When learning is fun students will become more engaged and better succeed!
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