There are some thing amidst my BEd program that I feel like I would be okay to skip: doing expanded addition, for example, is one of them. I am quickly learning that almost anything that is covered in my Tech class rings a warning bell for me – creating a narrated how-to video is certainly tip-top. When I was in grade school, we shared a computer lab between all grades and all classes, so I had fairly minimal online learning.

who can forget my learning how to spell via Google experience and navigating the convenience of versus my teachers’ distaste for Wikipedia; I was also more than enamored with All The Right Type and of course, Oregon Trail. I think we made a slideshow once because I remember clicking through all of the funny transition sequences.

And… that’s about it. In my adulthood I’m often feeling like a beginner, and it’s honestly quite helpful. Now that I’m back in school, I am really starting to appreciate hands-on, group learning – I found out that this is essentially the point of a Flipped Classroom. Thinking about implementing this method in my own teaching, I run into a block: interacting with technology is quite central to facilitating a Flipped Class, and do I want this for my students? Do I want this for myself? On one hand, I want to be more available in my class time, and I want my future students to feel like they are doing meaningful work. On the other hand, I have seen a wide disparity in access to technology, and time to spend on schoolwork outside of the classroom, and I worry about kids falling behind if they are not able or motivated to do the lesson before we start the work. I think this article covers the same range of thoughts; notably, the article is more than ten years old, and I expect my own insecurity about it could be chalked up to lack of exposure so far.

Let’s entertain me diving into a Flipped Class – what would that look like? If I was to use our own narration-how-to-video project as an example, then it’s almost without hesitation: I would want editing together, in real time as my focus. Identifying the most challenging part and pouring support into that task seems like a no-brainer. I could picture the unit going like,

  • watch [this video] before class, and write down 3 things that you notice about the presentation – we’ll talk about it together and how we could create something like that
  • brainstorm with a small group after school – or by yourself to share with your small group before the bell rings – what you would want to film so that we can use class time to record it (helpful for those who don’t have video cameras outside of school)
  • read [this how-to article] about how an editing app (like iMovie) works, so that we all start with the same information to edit our videos in class – then the teacher can 1-on-1 conference any necessary troubleshooting
  • have a “movie night” class with snacks, pj’s optional, where we will play everyone’s video to celebrate our success

And that would be great!!! And video or audio editing could be a project medium for loads of different things. You could make a visual journal of a nature walk, where you identify native species (flora or fauna). You could make a demo of a math problem you’ve mastered: a visual “show your work” and teaching others. You could learn a song and make a music video to create a story about what the song means, traditionally or just to you.

Honestly, it feels a little daunting to realize that there are a lot of good ideas around incorporating a video project in a hands-on, support-based class because I don’t feel like I’m very good at it yet, and picturing twenty 8-year-olds looking to me for guidance on it makes me sweat. It took me about 90 minutes (including a couple short but very necessary breaks) to just coordinate the narration for my how-to video, because my Chrome extension got tripped up and couldn’t record audio and video at the same time. Making a script, trimming the words when my edited clips were too short, deciding whether to fill words or leave space when they were randomly too long, ditching the script, stumbling over my words, using the script again, still stumbling over my words… it was… humbling. But… I did it? I have a lot of time and opportunity to practice. I probablyyy owe it to my future students to try.

I am trying! The video is below.