Process to Making a Video – For Serious

You are cordially invited to honor and engage our tech savvy students of the 21st Century. Please join in the transformation of education, by allowing students to create videos to illustrate comprehension of your subject matter. Student excitement and engagement is sure to follow. We hope to see you there!

There ya go. Consider this your official invitation to allow students to create, generate and produce videos to prove to you what they know.

Oh, but the videos won’t look professional you say? That’s okay, turn to NBC or Hulu or Netflix or…. (you get the point)… for that.

Oh, but I (the teacher) don’t know how to make videos? No worries. The students know how to do it, or they will Google it to figure it out. They like that sort of thing.

But wait, I don’t know how to grade a video. No problem. How do you grade presentations? Speeches? Essay’s? Use the same approach and format to grade comprehension of content in a video. Content over video production quality is key!

But there’s a catch, right? We don’t have time to make videos. Again, not a problem. With the advent of iOS devices, and a variety of camera options and apps, your students will figure it out.

Now relax and enjoy the next chapter of your teaching…increased student engagement in the educational process.

As my five year old son would say, “for serious?!” YES! It can be that easy and you’ll be amazed by the actual process students will follow to create a solid video. Consider the fact, that in order to create a video worthy to show you, here is what I know students will do. I have witnessed it first hand. For serious!

Build – Students will brainstorm, plan, outline, storyboard, research and prepare their content for their video. They will work independently, or even better, collaboratively in a group.

Author – How cool is this?! Students can actually be authors of their OWN content? You bet. Watch students create something they will be so proud of. They will take the time, follow a sequence along the way, and be very thorough in their approach. They will watch tutorial videos on their own (SchoolTube and YouTube have thousands on all forms of video production) and will actually follow directions.

Revision– Once your student has authored their content, allow for peer evaluation, critique and edits. You know this step, right? It’s a proven method in all subjects, like Math, Science, English……I’m leaving out a bunch, but you get the idea.

Publish and Share –  The “old days” of simply presenting to the class need to be over. Distribute to the web and watch your students gain confidence, increase their personal accountability, and become more motivated than ever to make sure their work is something they want permeating the globe. Allow your students the opportunity to share and collaborate with other classes from around the world, and you will be preparing them for future jobs and ultimately, life skills.

Critically Analyze – Now it’s time for you, the class, the students, friends, family, strangers, the world, etc. to evaluate and assess their work. What a fabulous feedback vehicle! Blog about it. Chat about it. Tweet about it. Post it on Facebook. Wait, these are the things students do, not teachers, right? Wrong. Not if you don’t want to miss an opportunity to speak a students language = Literacy. How about that?! Another educational value.

Tape this invitation to your refrigerator, desk, cork board, bookmark it, copy and paste it … Put it where ever you need to put it, in plain site. Our students’ future depends on innovation, and this is one way to respond to their needs. The power of video is immense. Woah, getting deep here! For serious, try it out. I think you’ll be pleased by the outcome.

RSVP to your administrator, curriculum coordinator, your students and to yourself, by no later than today.

Are ya comin’?