Why One-Minute Student-Made Video are Valuable

I attended another BER conference this week.  "Best, New Strategies for Using iPads, Phones, Mobile Devices and Other Cutting-Edge Technology to Strengthen Classroom Content Learning" with Zachary Walker, Ph. D.

One of the take-aways that I got from this workshop was one-minute students-made videos.  It hit me when he made us do it at the seminar.  He told us to get out our devices and record each other talking about something we just learned and we were given a time limit to finish.  This short activity forced me to be focused and realize what the main points were.  AND since it's on video it could go public!!!

Yesterday I gave my students the assignment to create a one-minute video about how to find slope.  I gave this assignment when there were 10 minutes of class left and told them that we would be recording tomorrow with Educreations.  They were to use the remaining class time to figure out what they were going to say.  That's when the magic happened.  The students were going back through their notes and trying to really understand the lesson, they didn't want to look like idiots on the video.  They were asking each other questions, they were summarizing, it was truly amazing to see.  I couldn't help but mentally compare this assignment to a worksheet.

Here were my directions:

1) The video must be no longer than 1 minute.
2) You must talk about how to find slope given a table, an equation, ordered pairs, and a graph.
3) Everyone must speak in the video
4) I am posting your videos on twitter so that the world can see it.  I will also send the the hashtag to the administrators and your parents.


Here is a sampling of the videos.  You will be able to find them all on twitter with the hashtag #oswald032114








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