Video Communication Project

Here is my screen shot of me using a synchronous video tool. I used Google Video Chat and I talked to my parents and my dog because I didn't know of any other classmates doing this project. It was fun to talk to them and learn how to use this new tool.


This is my screen shot of me using an asynchronous video tool: posting a video on facebook for a friend. This is a lot of fun. After doing this one, I did about eight more. :)


Here is my video on viddler. I uploaded a video I took on vacation this summer and left comments as if I were a teacher critiquing it. This is a fun tool.

My weekly participation idea which was my previous blog kind of talks about this because I did it before I decided I wanted to do the video communication project, and that post has some great ideas about using these tools. However, to expand, after I actually experimented with them, I found that they are easier to use than I thought. I feel that using the synchronous video programs can be very useful for communicating with say a pen pal across the world, or relatives that you don't see often and I would be interested in exploring these possibilities in the classroom. I would perhaps want to set students up with pen pals that live in our sister city or something like that so that they can get to know about different cultures and I think this would be a great way to do that. Also, it would be good for discussion groups and things of that nature. On a more personal level, it would be a good way for me to communicate with teachers throughout the teaching community who might be able to share with me some new insights on teaching and they would be able to demonstrate things to me instead of simply trying to explain them and because it is live, I would be able to ask questions of them as well.

The asynchronous video programs are great because they allow you to post a video for someone to view later and comment on or reply to you via video. They were a lot of fun for me just in sending my friends videos, but they would also be useful in the classroom for students wanting to communicate with each other as well as me as a teacher being able to record a short video and share it with students outside the classroom.

Video commenting is one of the most innovative things that I discovered while doing this project, and as I mentioned in my previous blog, it's a great way to comment on films or clips that need to be analyzed for class and it would be a great way, as I did for this project, to comment on student work. Say students created a video project and submitted it (something that has been done for years and years and were some of my favorite projects in high school) and I wanted to be able to tell them the things that I liked about it and the things that didn't meet requirements while watching the film so that they knew exactly what I was talking about. This is a great tool for something like that. And, as I also mentioned in the last post, I think this would be a great way for students to teach students when there isn't enough time for a lot of presentations in class.

Videos to Assist in Instruction

Watching the tutorial on Viddler got me thinking about different ways in which webcams can be used in the classroom. Also, I just started using my own webcam and in realizing how easy it is to use, I've come to the conclusion that it can and should be used in a lot of different ways, especially with teaching in the future.

One idea I had was that I could use Viddler to help students analyse videos or compare and contrast them with the written word, since I am going into English teaching. This way, students can have assignments to watch videos and they will have the opportunity to make comments and annotate as was mentioned in the tutorial. This will make it easier to communicate what point in the film the student is referring to instead of simply trying to describe it and getting confused. It also will cut down on time spent describing and taking notes on where something occurs in a film, which can be time consuming and really annoying.

I also was thinking about using Voicethreads in a similar way to the way that we receive instruction for this class, but in reverse. This was inspired by the devotionals that we give. I have always been a firm believer that when we have to teach something, we learn it better, but there is not always enough time in class for students to teach the class certain ideas or theories and so it would be a great way to help students learn to have then prepare a lesson plan and record it on voicethreads and then let the rest of the students learn from it and comment on it for homework. This way, the students learn and teach eachother and they have more opportunities to become experts on subjects because they are responsible for teaching them.

Also, sometimes it is difficult to describe how to do something in written word and so for some assignments, while I plan to explain them in class, I can also post the assignment along with a video of myself demonstrating how to do the assignment correctly so that students can refer back to it as they go about doing the assignment on their own.

There are many ways in which webcams and various video programs can be useful. I feel as though a whole new world has been opened up to me. :)