Ever watch what happens when you put a video in front of students? It is magic. The room falls silent. It is what we all want when we are standing in front of our class and giving directions. Being able to show a video that you’ve created captures student attention and can set the stage for ownership of learning. I’ve written about this strategy in the past, and I call it “team teaching with myself”. I’ll create short instructional videos or show an example of what we will be doing together and post it to google classroom. You might be thinking to yourself, “doesn’t that take the place of more personalized connections?”. I have never found this to be the case. Students are amazed that you even know how to make this content.
six reasons why I love team teaching with myself
- Videos can be referred to again and again by your students who need extra support or repetitive information. – Especially when organized in your Google Classroom
- You can create accurate and reliable content. – You will inevitably make errors when making content and this allows you to get it right before sharing it out.
- It truly catches your students’ attention by tapping into their visual and auditory learning styles.
- Videos make the best sub plans when you cannot be there in person.
- It eliminates repetition for you as the instructor.
- It streamlines future years of teaching if you already have the content created.
My favorite recording tools are Loom.com and the screen recorder on my iPad. The iPad screen recorder is available in your control center. This way I can record anything I am doing on my iPad. All the videos I create either live in my Loom account online, or I load them to Google Drive and share them through Google Classroom.
tips for quality videos
- Keep videos between 2 and 5 minutes. Ideally 3 minutes is the sweet spot. You can always create several shorter videos to create small chunks of information.
- Be sure there is no weird background noise. Use AirPods or headphones to help your sound quality.
- Watch your own video from start to finish.
- Limit talking over text.
Check out this super helpful article from Edutopia.org about making solid instructional videos. If you are interested in creating GIF’s or more creative videos to capture student attention, check out this video from an Apple Creative about using Apple’s Clips app for video creation.
If you want to determine how your students are engaging in your videos use Edpuzzle. Edpuzzle.com is a great tool for taking videos to the next level. It will collect data and it creates a structure for watching videos. Remember that we all have the full edpuzzle accounts if you log in with your google account.
In the days of post Covid, you might want to put instructional videos behind you. Let’s not forget that students are looking at screens to learn new skills outside of school all the time. They watch TikTok to practice a sport, cook something new, or learn a new hair braid. We can tap into these habits and empower our students to learn new skills at school through our own teacher creative content.
Ensworth Techie Tigers 