For the past two years I have started almost every class with video announcements. I talk about upcoming due dates, classroom reminders, birthday shout outs, the quote of the day and wrap-up with my catch phrase.
There are several reasons why I do this:
- It gives me the chance to do administrative tasks (take attendance, check in with students, etc.)
- It keeps me from having to repeat the same thing 4 times in a row.
- I don’t miss things as often.
- Most importantly, I can present the information in a new way. The hope is that hearing it in a video, seeing a due date on a paper and hearing it live will have a cumulative effect of reminding kids to get things done on time. It doesn’t always work.
http://https://youtu.be/OLxBI5IDuiE
I rarely devote more than 6 or 7 minutes at the beginning of the day to these videos. When I first started recording them, I would rerecord them 5 or 6 times to make them perfect. Now, I just keep recording, even if I mess up. Kids love the bloopers. They love seeing me do something silly or say the wrong word. It lets them know that everyone makes mistakes and life goes on. One of their favorite things to do is screenshot when I make weird faces and airdrop them to me.
Most of my videos are just me talking into the camera, but sometimes I do more interesting things with the videos. I’ve done stop motion videos, guest speakers, “guest” speakers (me in a Batman costume for example), anything to make it a little more interesting. These videos take a little more time, so I only do them every once in awhile.
http://https://youtu.be/MXocwP8fvSk
http://https://youtu.be/h6XqE7mI9BQ
It’s also a resource for parents. I post my videos on Youtube and parents can see exactly what we have coming up each day if they wanted to. It’s also a great reminder to myself if I need to look back at what we were doing this time last year.
Overall, it only takes a little prep work in the morning and saves me time throughout my day.
At the end of the videos I wrap up the same way…
Until next time, book it forward and be awesome!
