Mar 23 2010
Putting Class Videos Online – Mr. Dale Speaks
Recently I posed some questions for Mr. Dale, a 5th grade teacher in Idaho who makes and posts videos of his class online. He graciously answered the following questions for me:
What are some of the benefits of sharing classroom videos online?
How supportive is the school administration?
Does the school district support and encourage your efforts?
How do you address parental fears about kids being featured in online videos?
How would you react if you discovered one of your students secretly videotaping you in class?
Can you tell me about any rules regarding cameras or other personal electronics, cell phones, ipods, etc?
Tell me about the technology at your school? Is there a firewall that limits access to web 2.0 technologies?
Why do you think teachers aren’t putting more class videos online?
Does your class collaborate with other kids from around the world?
this is good stuff, bill!
Nice interview, Bill!
Mr. Dale makes some good points.
Video editing is fairly time-consuming; more teachers probably focus their time on their lesson plans. However, which one gets the students more involved and eager to learn — an exciting video that involves school activities that would probably cause the students to remember what they learned, or a piece of paper with notes? (Did we take notes in 5th grade? I don’t recall.)
Students with ill intentions could record a video or their teach and edit it so that the misrepresentative content could do damage, possibly ruining their career. I believe this is one of the risks that goes along with sousveillance — with schools, law enforcement and other government organizations.
Mr. Dale’s reply for your last question is discouraging though. He and a teacher from the Midwest corresponded for a few days and were interested in doing video pen pals (fun idea!), but then everything stopped. Maybe the e-mail he sent was accidentally sent to the junk mail.
I’m saddened to see that a valuable connection was lost and no effort was made to reconnect. It also seems like the idea to contact the outside world isn’t there, due to time and the lack of resources (technology and money).
Mr. Dale, I encourage you to take the next step (connect) and continue to raise the bar for his region. Get more people excited about new projects and using available technology to garner students’ interest inside and outside of the classroom. Keep pushin’.
Aside, love the “I Want To Believe” mouse at 5:52.
heres then link i was talking about in class.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/25/us/25mobs.html?WT.mc_id=US-SM-E-FL-SM-LIN-MAB-032510-NYT-NA&WT.mc_ev=click