Learning from Videos: Animal Observations

When I started using Antarctica as a theme for teaching nonfiction back in 2008, I used mostly print resources. I had a sometimes-functioning LCD projector, no Internet access to the LCD (the cord wasn't long enough!), and limited computer lab access.

So much has changed. This year, half of those print resources that I so carefully accumulated in 2008-2010 ended up staying in the box. It's not that I'm against print resources--it's just that I can be much more selective now that I have so many digital resources at hand.

How to scaffold students to use these digital resources? I decided to start by watching students as they engaged with videos on their own. What were they doing? What were they noticing?

What I Saw

-Lots of talk: Watching videos does get students engaged in talking. Many students would cluster around a laptop to watch a video--"Look at that!" "Ew!" "What's that animal?"

But...

-Not much use of content-specific vocabulary: For all the talking going on, students weren't using much content-specific vocabulary. Listening to their conversations, it was impossible to tell what they were watching or what they were learning from it. Their comments were mostly reactions, not elaborations or statements.

My time watching the students helped me to consider what my next steps would be. How could I help students to watch video purposefully? The availability of firsthand video means that students learning about a remote location don't have to depend on other people's words or generalizations--they can view video and create their own ideas. But this kind of purposeful watching doesn't come naturally to young learners.

Next Steps

So what can video do that my text resources cannot? Extended, minimally produced animal videos are my favorite video resources. They are a great use of technology because these videos give students an experience that they would not otherwise have.

Students can learn a great deal from these sources. Consider this video of the Antarctic icefish:



What can students learn from watching this? There are so many interesting details about the icefish! I made this observation form to help students focus their observations:

It will be interesting to see what students do with this. Will their conversations change? Will they be able to weave details gleaned from a video into their writing? Will they be able to create their own observation forms?

I'm also interested in seeing if students consider the sources of the videos. How was the footage obtained? Is this typical of the animal? This kind of learning will be essential for our students as they encounter more and more video resources.

If you are interested in trying this with your students, here is a YouTube playlist that I created of animal footage:

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Choosing and Using Video for the Classroom

   As I've been working on putting together texts for the Frolyc Activity Spot app, I've been watching lots and lots of online videos--the good, the bad, and the ugly. These kinds of videos have amazing potential as classroom resources. As I watched, I thought back to how I started out with adding video to the classroom and what I am thinking now.

The Highly Produced
I must admit that when I first started looking for videos for my classroom (back in 2011, when I first had access to wireless), I was drawn to highly produced video clips. I wanted to be very careful about what I wanted to show in the classroom and I gravitated toward video clips created by familiar companies.

Small Scale Productions
But as I've combed through more videos, I've come to value the smaller scale productions by museums, labs, and other groups. While these videos don't always have the fancy music or clever titles, they do feature experts in the field. They also can spark great discussions with students about credibility--how do we know that these people are good sources? I can't wait to share some of the videos from Jefferson Labs with my students.




Raw footage and time lapse
This year I experimented more with showing raw footage to students. We all loved the Cornell Nest Cams during the spring. Students also enjoyed seeing time lapse footage during our Earth cycles unit--watching the day/night cycle and the cycle of the seasons in time lapse is lots of fun. To help students understand the way that ferry boats work, I showed a time lapse of a Vancouver ferry.



What does a time lapse video show? How is it different from a video shown in normal time? Why might someone create a video in time lapse? These are all great questions to consider with students, and these questions are why I value YouTube more and more. (With safety mode always enabled and videos always previewed, of course!) With teaching about firsthand accounts becoming more and more important, it's important to share and talk about firsthand accounts with students.

As I have watched videos this summer, I've been creating some playlists to go along with my units for the school year. This playlist goes along with various texts in my text structure units. (Links to the various units are included at the bottom of the post)



Notes and Updates
Whew! I finally redid the entire Character Traits and Emotions unit. This was one of my last units that was still a single Word document. The revised unit has individual files, a character traits PowerPoint, stories, activities, and lesson plans.

I'm still getting lots of requests for spelling lists. Our homemade lists and activities are in a folder on Google Drive. Send me an email from your Google account (elkissn@gmail.com) and I'll add you to the permissions list. And please do let me know if you use the program! We could have our students share activities or something.

I have found the Lexiles for most of the texts in my Text Structure units, but I haven't yet updated the units to reflect this yet. Let me know if you are interested in this information before the school year begins.

Here are the links to the various text collections:

-Cause and Effect Texts
-Chronological Order Texts
-Description Texts
-Compare and Contrast Texts
-Problem and Solution Texts
-Introduction to Text Structure

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