I thought that asking 5th graders to videotape themselves telling about their week was going to save me time and maybe even increase engagement with parents. A win-win for me. Actually, feedback from parents hasn't been overwhelmingly consistent with newsletters, or videos, or Twitter, or even email. So I thought, why not? Why not turn the reigns over to the kids? We are student-led. They love to videotape themselves and we've been working on reflecting in authentic ways. So they chose a subject area, got their Chromebooks, sat with their partners, and made a video.
I envisioned 2 students visible in front of a camera articulating all the cool things they'd learned this week, maybe even show some quick artifacts from the week. 30 seconds later, parents would feel like they had a window into the classroom. Well, there were some 30 second videos and other 6 minute ones! After I threaded all their videos together, the video was 23 minutes long! No problem, I'll drop them into iMovie and start editing... only the videos were made on a Chromebook app that wouldn't download from Google Drive in a readable format. Insert teacher grumble. This was no longer a time saving idea. After searching the internet for forums to help problem solve, nothing worked. What to do next? Screencast them, save them as mp4s, then download and finally drop them into iMovie. Whew... another hour later all videos are in iMovie ready to edit. While each video was recorded as a screencast, I got to watch every single second of every single video yet again. The big question: where in the world do I even begin to edit? What would even be left of the video, if I took everything out that I deemed not important?
And that question led to a reflection. What is the purpose of this? I'm not sure what these videos reveal about our classroom. A bunch of giggling 10-11-year-olds trying to gain the attention of a camera. Reality check... kids aren't hearing what you want them to hear... it's not about you... and it's about them. As clear as my purpose is in planning for them each week, one of two things must be happening, either they are only hearing what they want to hear, or I'm not clearly teaching the purpose behind what we do. I'm guessing it's the latter (insert belly laugh).
Just as we teach kids that we write for different purposes and audiences, we also need to teach kids that we speak for different purposes and audiences. As they giggle, play around with each other, hem and haw over what they want to say, point out what we'd (teachers) hope what had happened in the classroom wouldn't be repeated is, pop in and out of the screen, record with half their head showing... I blurt out loud, "What in the world are they doing?" NEWSFLASH SElf: They are doing what they know because there haven't been taught otherwise.
And so I'll edit these student-led videos the best that I can, download them a one video, and unapologetically share it with parents. Next week, we'll be intentional as we watch the videos and make a plan for improvement. Here's to the "Just do it" mentality. It's the best way to fail, learn, improve, and sustain a growth mindset.
Here we go...13 1/2 minutes of raw footage (minus 10 minutes of them hemming and hawing).
