Engaging pupils using videos

Well hello to you. This blog post comes at the end of a long week in which I have had two days off for food poisoning. It wasn't fun, but missing two days of school means the week has just whizzed past. Although Saturday morning school is still Saturday morning school! In the days I have been at school I have been all about the video. The Youtube channel I set up has been a big topic of conversation in my lessons. Mostly I have recieved mockery for having no subscribers, I am now up to 5! I have also been mocked for not having many views. But as we are I have recieved 169 views. I don't think that is bad at all!

There are huge educational benefits to using video in the classroom and I have found the engagement of my pupils has been noticeable. I would say again and again that I only want to bring technology to my classroom when it can enhance what we are doing. Here are a few of the uses I have found. I'll follow it up with a bit about what I have learnt in the process.

Lesson Aim Videos

So many times I stand at the front saying what we will be studying in the lesson, so much more fun to create a video that does it. I have used Tellagami. So simple. You just pick what you want to look like and you can either record the message, or write it down and choose the voice it should be delivered in. The avatar even uses hand gestures at the exact point I would. Uncanny.

Plenary videos

I am trialling this with my year 6 classes. At the end of the lesson I get one of them to record a video explaining what we have studied in the lesson. These are then stored in a folder, so that when they are revising they can look back over them and watch a reminder of the year's work.

• Screen Cast videos

My pupils study Common Entrance and the questions they answer are a bit bizarre. I have used Screencast-O-Maticto record myself explaining how to answer these questions so when they are at home completing homework they can re-watch it if they get stuck. I plan to do this for each of the different types of question they encounter.

• Expressing Opinions/Brainstorming Questions

This is probably my favourite use. When we have been discussing a topic I have got the children to record themselves expressing their opinions. Yesterday this was whether they would want to be a Reform or an Orthodox Jew. They then upload the videos to our shared area on the school system and we can watch them on the computer. This has also been useful for brainstorming how to answer different questions. They have 5 minutes to record a point and we watch them and discuss which ones are the best and which ones we would want to include in our own answers. Clearly all this could be done on pen and paper but if they love it, I always want to fit my teaching around what works for them.

Having said all this positivity about using the videos, we have come across some issues; they seem to be very concerned with looking good on the videos, and despite being about to offer an idea in class when discussing questions for some reason when they come to make the point on the video they say there is nothing to say. The first time it has been time consuming as we have needed to go through how to upload. I did try using Google Drive for uploads, but this took forever.

So I would love to hear from you, have you been using technology? Do you have any great uses for the classroom?