I’ve written before about the extraordinary value and significance of digital video for enhanced teaching and learning; as Chris Anderson writes in Wired Magazine:
I believe that the arrival of free online video may turn out to be just as significant a media development as the arrival of print. It is creating new global communities, granting their members both the means and the motivation to step up their skills and broaden their imaginations. It is unleashing an unprecedented wave of innovation in thousands of different disciplines: some trivial, some niche in the extreme, some central to solving humanity’s problems.
In short, free online video is boosting the net sum of global talent. It is helping the world get smarter…. Video is the killer app. Don’t write me. Tell me. Show me.
When I was a teacher in the nineties, videos were much harder to access, often expensive, and somehow it seemed the mentality was that if you were going to show a video, you ought to show an entire hour– a full episode for instance of “Eyes on the Prize” or “The Civil War.” The youtube revolution, however, has unleashed not only an enormous array of video opportunities, for free, but also shifted the mindset to the power of short video- five minutes is too long, 2-3 minutes perfect. It is for illumination, not full-length exposition.
And as we recognize the power of digital video-watching for student understanding, we also come to see the critical importance of the digital video-making for student skill development. It is the third leg of a communication skill set, joining written and oral communication. As the Chronicle of Higher Education wrote last year
Film students aren’t the only ones producing videos for homework these days. Professors teaching courses in writing, geology, forensics, sociology, anthropology, foreign languages, and many other disciplines now assign video projects, pushing students to make arguments formatted for the YouTube age.
video is only one aspect of multimedia literacy, which can also include other forms of digital communication, including audio and interactive presentations. “It’s really being able to communicate effectively in a networked culture.”
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I’m lifting the following from our weekly St. Gregory Hawks e-view newsletter; it is a monthly column prepared by our Technology Director Andrei Henriksen, a series he calls Trending site of the month: This month’s subject is YouTube use, and he has helpfully collected reports from a number of our teachers about the way they are using youtube, as an element of our 1:1 laptop program, in class. My thanks to both Andrei and these teachers
✹ English, Dr. Kate Oubre
First semester, students in English 1 produce a creative project including a written memoir/story, original art, and an original promotional video uploaded onto YouTube and inserted into their own Google site page. Students this year focused on food and culture and produced such works as“The Perfect Gift” with animation, and “St. Patrick’s Day Supper,” with a slide show and written narration.
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✹ History, Dr. Michelle Berry
We use YouTube in both my Seminar in US History and my AP U.S. Government courses. Most recently, students uploaded their own videos from the APGOV Campaign Project to YouTube. For an example:
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I’ve been writing recently about FabLabs (
21k12 