Many teachers and students are beginning to use vlogging/vodcasting in classrooms in many new and creative ways. TeacherTube.com was created in March 2007 as a resource which provides an online community for sharing instructional videos. Attached here is a link to a vlog posted by Mr. Bosch, a middle school Science teacher. Mr. Bosch maintains a blog about what his students are doing in class but created this video blog in order to show a clip of his students working on a particular class project. The students are working on gathering information on characteristics of various ecosystems and are sharing the results of their work by creating their own vodcasts, which Mr. Bosch will post to his own website for viewing.
Mr. Bosch illustrates one great way for teachers and students to use vlogging and vodcasts to communicate information and to share student projects. As teachers/teacher librarians, we can use vlogging/vodcasts to communicate information about what our students are working on and what they are learning in the LMC. We can also use this tool to provide students a new and different forum through which they can communicate directly about what they are studying, what their interests are, etc. Do you see vlogging/vodcasting as a useful tool in the K-12 setting? Do you see other ways in which this capability might be used in schools or in the LMC specifically?
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4 comments:
My initial reaction, and one that I am not over, is how useful this may be to parents. As a parent of a school aged child, I would love for better ways to connect with my child's teacher and to learn about what she does from day to day. The "what did you do today?" question doesn't get so far when, at 3:00, she is ready to leave school behind and play. If her teacher created a vlog and updated it every friday, I would feel so much more informed. Her teacher does send home fliers, but Mr. Borsch's vlog was powerful because you get a better feel for who he is and what the kids are doing.
As a TL, I would use this to keep parents informed and involved in the happenings in the school library.
I love Brianna's idea of creating an LMC vodcast. I could see at the end of a unit (not every unit but the big ones) the librarian could introduce the vodcast telling parents about the unit and then there could be footage of students at work, showing the products of their work and telling what they learned.
The school library website that I reviewed for Comprehensive Evaluation Report for this class made good use of vodcasting. That librarian has a weekly book review which is posted to her library website as a vodcast in her library blog. It is rather cute, because it is elementary aged kids and because "Olive the library cat" plays a main role (take a look at: http://csslibraryblog.blogspot.com/). In her blog entries, she does essentially what Brianna suggested -- provides weekly updates about what's been going on in the library.
I think using vodcasts as a way to keep parents informed about what their kids are doing in the LMC is a great idea. Thanks Brianna! You're right... you rarely get the full story from the student because by the time you ask how school was they are already done with thinking about school for the day. This would be a great way for parents to stay aware of what lessons their kids are involved in and can help foster a better relationship between parents and teachers/TLs.
Natalie, thanks for your reference to an actual library vodcast. This is a great example of how this technology can be utilized.
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