Video in the Classroom

Click on the title to view my mini-movie made using Jumpcut at Jumpcut.com.

In my second grade classroom, we have done some beginning steps leading up to video production but have not actually made any videos.

The class went on a field trip last week to Adams’ Wildlife Sanctuary. On this trip, each adult leader carried a digital camera. When the group stopped at a station, they were required to prove that they had completed the station by posing for a picture. These pictures were downloaded into iPhoto on a stationary iMac. A slideshow will be produced for the parents to watch while waiting for Parent/Teacher conferences this week. I will also use these pictures in our newsletter, upload some to our class web page and some will be used for writing workshop. Each child receives a picture and writes about it using complete sentences and details. Sometimes these are printed for a book. They could also be used in the storyboard for a movie retelling our field trip.

I used Jumpcut to practice making a very short movie with pictures from our trip, clipart and an audiofile. The clips and audio uploaded easily. It was simple to add titles and audio. I also changed the style. The only difficulty I experienced was impatience. I kept trying to change things while things were rendering or uploading. I was using my quick connection at school and not my modem at home! I have used iMovie in the past. Jumpcut seemed to work similarly.

My students would require quite a bit of supervision during a project like this. I have thought about trying some short videos showing the students completing an action. For example, some could hop and some could jump and some could swing. These could be put together into a short video about verbs. Hopefully, this would help them to understand a verb as an action word.

It is good to know that these movies can be saved and displayed on a web page. I would need to know how to condense the movie to make it open more easily using slower connections. Jeff had good suggestions regarding shooting video that I would need to consider during the preproduction, production and postproduction stages of video-making.