There are a number of great sites that host how-to videos: SuTree, 5min, VideoJug, Expert Village, Vidipedia, and many more. Typically just a few minutes long, these types of videos seem like a perfect opportunity for K-12 and higher education students to display their expertise on some topic. If scientists can tap into the power of online video, educators should be able to as well.
My favorite educational how-to videos are the comma rules at Bionic Teaching. There's just something about those commas dropping down that's sheer genius! Wouldn't it be great if we saw more of this in K-12 classrooms? If creating is the highest level of Bloom's revised taxonomy, wouldn't how-to videos be one great way to foster this? Wouldn't TeacherTube (or some similar site) be a great location for students to upload these? I can envision high-school students creating resources for younger students, middle school students creating how-to videos for their parents, elementary students creating videos for each other, and so on…
Anyone out there making how-to videos with students? Give us some links so we can check them out!
I’m not sure you can call them how-to videos but they certainly are all about teaching Spanish! Go check them out at http://www.teachjeffspanish.com
Chris
They’re not how to videos but videos based on whatever subject we’re teaching. The first year we had nothing to show students but after that every year we have projects to show them made by the class before and so their knowledge can continue to build on the knowledge of the class before. http://www.videointheclassroom.com
So simple…so effective…also a great assessment tool…the word video though scares some teachers. This is the first good reason I have seen to actually have a “computer class” at the 3-8 level. Normally I believe all technology should be integrated within the curriculum… but at some point the kids need to gain some basic skills and at least at my school they are not learning it on their own.
We do regular student videos in our district. Here is on explaining the school rules:
http://msfranksclass.blogspot.com/2007/08/three-rs-of-shaw.html
I am the ITRT (integration technology resource teacher) at my school. I am working with a teacher on a project on advertisement techniques. The kids are using iMovie and CC-licensed images to produce narrated advertisements. Since there are no images of the students, or names to identify them, we are uploading them to YouTube so the kids can show off to their friends and families. They are working extra hard and have been talking about having a contest to see who gets the most hits and comments. They are not “videos” really, but the kids are producing great stuff. I’ll post links here when they are ready.
It’s also a great way to teach students that different types of communication require different skills. Like fiction vs. non-fiction writing, there are skills to be learned from creating videos that aren’t stories.
And not just videos — podcasts, comic books, and other multimedia can accomplish the same goal.
Here’s a site from Winston Churchill Middle school in California http://www.sanjuan.edu/webpages/jdarrow/genyes.cfm?subpage=58891
Many of our schools use these resources in many ways, teaching younger students, or even teaching teachers. It’s great for everyone involved, and better than canned content. Especially for technology, because the how to video can be very specific to your technology set up – it can show exactly how to save files to YOUR file server, how to access district resources, how to edit a teacher web page for example, instead of a generic video that might be too vague.
Here’s a post from a while back about student-made help video tips, using the Common Craft “RSS in Plain English” as an example of best practices.
http://blog.genyes.com/index.php/2007/04/27/rss-in-plain-english-ideas-for-student-made-help-videos/
I have begun producing instructional screencast videos for students. Getting them to produce their own would be an awesome next step. You can view via URL assoc. With this post.
Is this what you had in mind???
http://www.curriki.org/
As a member of Curriki’s Board of Directors and the visionary behind the idea for Curriki, Scott G. McNealy will help guide the organization’s goal of making world-class curricula universally accessible.
Currently Chairman of Sun Microsystems, Inc.’s Board of Directors, McNealy co-founded the company in 1982. He served as chief executive officer and chairman at Sun for 22 years, steering the Company to constant innovation in open, network computing. He also helped transform the company from a Silicon Valley start-up to a leading provider of network computing infrastructure with more than 30,000 employees worldwide, all while positioning the Company as the model of corporate integrity.
McNealy is known for his longstanding commitment to education and advocacy for open and competitive business practices. In March 2004, he led Sun to create the Global Education & Learning Community (GELC) to leverage open source to provide affordable lifelong learning for all students, no matter where they are. GELC was spun off in 2006 as an independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit now known as Curriki – the Global Education & Learning Community.
McNealy holds a Bachelors of Arts from Harvard with a Bachelors of Arts in Economics and received a Masters of Business Administration from Stanford University.
Hi Scott,
I can’t beleive that no one has mentioned Teacher Tube. There are many interesting, informative, and entertaining videos posted by teachers. The videos include videos with students and student-created videos. the url is http://www.teachertube.com ENJOY!
Thanks, everyone, for the leads. I guess I was thinking of true how-to videos, not just videos generally. Some of the resources on Curriki and TeacherTube are how-tos, some aren’t. Also, I think it would be great to see more student-generated how-tos, not just adult-generated how-tos…
I started having students create how-to videos last year. There are some examples on this page toward the bottom of the collection.
They were asked to create a video that showed fellow students how to accomplish simple tasks.
In some cases the audio quality isn’t terrific, but I was excited to have them create something that could be useful to others.
http://mrmoonsclass.wikispaces.com/Student+Projects
Add Video Clips to Your Classroom Instruction
Dr. Scott McLeod of the Dangerously Irrelevant blog has a great post on How-To Videos.In the post…
Add Video Clips to Your Classroom Instruction
Dr. Scott McLeod of the Dangerously Irrelevant blog has a great post on How-To Videos.In the post…
Add Video Clips to Your Classroom Instruction
Dr. Scott McLeod of the Dangerously Irrelevant blog has a great post on How-To Videos.In the post…