Tips · March 13, 2019

Add Videos to Learning Journals

This month, we’re posting ideas and tips on using video in the classroom. This week’s post is kind of an extension of one we wrote about using templates in Pages for student work. If you haven’t read that post yet, go check that one out first.

Pages is great for embedding media, but there are others you can use with your students. Book Creator is available on student iPads and allows you access even more templates, including comic book layouts and extra styling some students might like. Templates aside, this post is about videos, so let’s take a look.

Video Brings Clarity

As students become better writers, clarity certainly improves. But, there are topics, particularly procedural topics, it can be hard to assess whether a student can perform or demonstrate the skill or procedure they’re writing about. Bringing video into the writing process helps students reflect on performance and communication in writing. You can also provide more specific feedback on student writing using the video to support the feedback.

The Camera

Start with the iPad camera. There are many apps (including Pages and Book Creator) which can access the camera directly for embedding pictures or video, but it can distract students from the writing in the journal. Prompt students to gather evidence in the moment. Open the camera during the lab and take a picture. Or find a buddy and film one another making the free throw or performing a monologue. Once the video is in the iPad’s photos, it can also be added to the journal.

Try It Out

This is a short post, and it might not seem like a revolutionary idea, but give it a try. Have students capture short clips (less than one minute) of what they’re doing and add it to their writing. Next week, we’ll look at how students can show processes in video (solving a problem, analyzing some text) with video, so focus on the kinesthetic aspect with this tip.

Do you have students sharing videos with their writing? What has worked well for you? What would you suggest for organizing? Leave a comment below!


The featured image was taken by the author for this post.