Week 2, Monday

My Thoughts on Using Video

On Monday in class we talked about some ways that videos can be used in today's classrooms to minimize lecturing and maximize the time that students are able to spend in class actually practicing the content actively.  This makes perfect sense in the language classroom, in which it has been shown to be so important for the students to USE the language in a variety of situations and not just be able to explain it through rules.  We often spend the class time going over certain features of the language and then tell the students to practice on their own, usually through written homework exercises.  Instead, students can be directed to the videos to prepare before class and then as teachers we can lead them through hands-on activities.  We do currently try something similar by having students read a textbook lesson before coming to class so that we can just quickly review it and then move on to some practicing.  However, the idea of finding useful videos for the students to watch instead is appealing, as they may find it easier and more interesting to watch videos rather than reading the textbook outside of class.
 

As for actually filming and editing the videos -- it's a lot of work!  We are still in the process of using imovie to edit the lesson we planned and filmed.  Although it is a lot of work, the videos could then be used repeatedly with a variety of students, so it would be worth the effort in the long-run.  Here is a link to the video that Michaela and I created, on "How to Stress in Spanish."