Making School Videos Interactive
Author: k5blog
Choosing the right school videos to supplement regular class work can be challenging. On one hand, you want to find a way to appeal to students on their level—and in the age of MySpace, YouTube and iPods, school videos seem like a good choice.
On the other hand, you don’t want the kids to just zone out or write off the video as boring simply because it’s being shown in a classroom. When it comes to class movies, students have a tendency to approach them the same way they look at healthy food—if it’s good for you, then it can’t possibly be any good.
I’ve found that the best approach when showing a video is to make it as interactive an activity as possible. That means pausing the video at certain points and having an informal class discussion about what has been viewed so far. Since most educational videos come with a lesson plan, it’s not very difficult to find useful discussion guidelines.
I also make it a point to ask kids what they think an answer or result will be (“How many salmon do you think will survive the migration?” or “How do think Einstein felt when his teacher told him he wasn’t intelligent? How would you feel if someone told you that now?” or “How do you think Helen Keller is going to get around the fact she can’t go to school with other kids?”) before I show them the result. This keeps them interested.
The best advice I can give, however, is to never rely on a video as the sole part of a lesson plan. A school video should never stand alone but instead should be merely a small part of an entire lesson plan.
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Tags: lesson plan, school videos
