Video commenting

As we've worked with this site, it's been a struggle to inspire third and fourth graders to stick with an assignment through revisions to a final product. It's also been challenging to have the students provide helpful comments to their peers.

Having students make video comments seemed like the perfect way to add a sense of importance to what they had to say. My first attempt was with a flip camera as I didn't have a web cam. It was so interesting to video tape the comments. First I was clear about the focus of the comments. Students needed to refer back to the assignment for the first journal entry for the multimedia project about immigration. I saw a new level of concentration and a seriousness about choosing the right words to say in the video.

Great idea but I went about it the wrong way. I could never figure out how to download the flip camera video. I spent hours with our technology support. We sent the video to a free site to have the format changed. We thought we had the problem solved but when I downloaded onto this site you could hear the students but could only see swirling colors rather than the student. Luckily, the kids thought this was really cool.

The next step was to track down a web cam. That being done, I had the luxury of bringing one student at a time to my office to create a video comment while the class was in the tech lab working on journal entries and on the Prezi presentation. In the lab, Mary Jane and I agreed on four points that needed to be addressed in the comment. Again, the reaction was very positive. We assigned each student one person to comment about. Knowing that they were accountable for covering four key points  led them to be very careful and thorough when reading. They were all excited and nervous about making a video comment.

This time, it was very easy to post the video. One problem is that they are not clear. Also, a few only have sound and I'm wondering if that is because they didn't save when finished. Still, I feel happy with this success. Next week, we'll continue working on this project. We plan to pair a fourth grader with a third grader to provide help with the presentations. We're hoping to finish the video comments. Here are links to two of the commenters.

http://allenbrook.ywpschools.net/node/578

http://allenbrook.ywpschools.net/node/594

The next challenge will be to have the students reading their journal entries within the prezi presentation. I'm not sure if some type of podcast would work or if we might want to import a video of the students dressed in period clothing reading their entries.

We're looking forward to having Geoff visit next week to help us out.

Betty