Video Creation to Demonstrate Learning

I attended a webinar yesterday hosted by Richard Byrne (Free Technology for Teachers) titled Video Creation as a Demonstration of Learning.  Excellent, informative.  Richard's key messages:

1. video engages students so much more than the traditional essay writing, slide presentation (though these have their place)
2. a well defined project assignment can be much more effective in assessing deeper learning
3. a video project presents many more opportunities for real collaboration and community communications, including whole school and parents
4. classroom video projects are very feasible, at low or no cost

[here's a link to the recording of the webinar and a link to the presenter's slides; You'll need to have an edWeb account, which is free]

Are there projects in your curriculum that entail a powerpoint presntation or a poster?  Could it be changed to a 1 minute student movie?  Think Norm Abrams - students creating an instructional video.  Grooming a poodle, adjusting a carburetor, sharpening a chainsaw.  Class poetry slam?

I'm developing a resource guide for students to create their own films.  It is a work in progress and will continue to change as I learn more.  If you have a video project in mind, check it out.  I'm also in the process of creating a teachers resource guide for teaching with video.

Thinking about student videos reminded me of a short news item I saw on TED.  TED has created a student channel, TED-Ed Clubs, specifically for students to deliver and share TED Talk-style video lectures on topics they are passionate about.  Burlington High School is a member and their experience is highlighted in a recent post on KQED's Mind/Shift blog.  We could do this!  Here's a short video about TED-Ed Clubs:

Free, powerful, easy to use, and readily accessible technologies makes all this possible.  Smartphones with 5+ megapixel cameras that shoot 3 to 4 minute HD quality video; free, robust online video editors, and the simplicity of posting videos to blogs, websites, or cloud services are just a few.

I thought about how the configuration of the typical school is going to change as more and more schools embrace this idea of student created media as a standard part of their learning assessments and it reminded me of a blog post from an Icelandic teacher - Ingvi Hrannar Omarsson - on the things that are obsolete in the 21st century school.  He originally published a list of 14 items back in February, and just recently added another 10.