I’m not (yet) much of a video-maker myself, but I have very much come to appreciate the power of video in communicating; our students most certainly need to learn to write masterfully, but they will also be best engaged in their learning today, and prepared for their challenges tomorrow, if they are multi-media creators and communicators.   For instance, I have written here often about the value of the CWRA test, but I am sure that my greatest impact has been not in my writing but in the video we published of our students discussing the test experience.

In Jeff Clashman’s 7th and 8th grade Latin classes, students are using video (above and below) to learn history and language.  Using playmobil toys, they are recreating and filming historical events; they are also crafting sentences demonstrating Latin sentence structures, and then using imovie to create short films which showcase these concepts.

Last week the Arizona Daily Star published an article about a new curricular program for our ninth graders, in English 1 with Dr. Kate Oubre.  After consideration of their summer reading (Halaby’s West of the Jordan), our students were asked to write their own coming of age short story.   They then were also challenged and supported to draw an accompanying illustration, and film a short-story “teaser”  or trailer to promote their narrative.

The full pbworks site for the project was linked from the newspaper article, and is available here: you can read their fine stories, and see the student videos, several of which are also posted below.