Journal 3

Video in the Age of Participation
By: Glen Bull

This article discusses the fact that with the success of YouTube and Googles acquisition of them, digital video is becoming the new "it" in technology. Being able to use digital video technology can be an incredible resource for teachers. Teachers will be able to section off video segments for teaching tools much more easily. PBS and National Geographic are just two groups that make their material available online for public use. National Geographic has footage of African Wildlife and PBS offers it's NOVA science programs for teachers to reference in their lessons. Though these sites have helpful videos not many are set up with easy reference to help teachers find videos they are looking for. Discovery Education has set up a very helpful resources where teachers can key in the content they are looking for and it will direct them to some of their 40000 video segments they can use in their lecture. Discovery also allows for teachers to and students to pull one of their video clips, edit or remix it and repost it to their site for someone else to possibly use. These kind of programs can help teachers to easily include video into their lectures, helping hem to keep the interest of students and give a more vivid demonstration then they could have done with lecture alone. Another site available is Next Vista which is an online library of videos put together by teachers and/or students. There is a lot of new technology available online to help edit and create video clips of your own, which can also be a great lesson for students.

Question?
What ways can we incorporate this technology into our classrooms?
Answer
It would be beneficial to utilize these video clips in our teaching to give students a more visual example. It can also give them some new technology training to have them find video clips to help with their own projects, as well as, make their own video clips.
Question?
How can we make this technology more readily available?
Answer
Have a summer course available for teachers to take to train them on searching the web for video clips and how to edit or create their own. Also work with educational programs to get a catalog of video clips into the computers at your schools.