As part of the ICT PLT Wendy has been working with videos and, in particular, attempting to use them as a collaborative alternative to in-class oral presentation.

Why video?

Wendy wanted an alternative to putting her students through 30 oral presentations. She also wanted a creative and collaborative way to show her students each other’s work. As a result, she devised a task where students would create a video and then, in groups of six, watch and comment on the work of the others in their group.

Creating the videos

While her students enjoyed the creative element to making videos, issues arose in the number of formats that were used in their creation. This had ramifications in the second part of the assignment where the movies had to be viewed all together.

If you are having your students create their own video, make sure they know (or you teach them) how to create videos in the format that you want them in or how to convert videos into this format. In the case of the former, cover it before they start filming and tell them which devices you want them to use (the black Canon digital cameras in the library record in a friendly format). In the case of the latter, many students will want to use their own devices and will be able to convert the files by themselves. If you want all the students to do this, book some lab time at the end of the creation stage, make sure you have the appropriate software and show them how to convert their files.

Many of the students are already comfortable with this technology and will be able to submit their work to you on DVD or on a stick. If you aren’t intending to view them in groups this is fine. If you are, see below.

Showing the videos

Putting the videos somewhere where they can easily be seen by your students but not by the public can be challenging. This is because video files are really big. Another problem is allowing access to all the videos at the one time.

While 30 memory sticks, burnt DVDs with the content on them or putting them on the network are all options, the easiest way to do it would be to put all of the videos onto TeacherTube and have them protected (so that only someone with the link can view them), then email each group of kids the links to their videos.

For more info on how to put videos on TeacherTube, see this post.