The Use of Video in Education

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    I can remember whenever I was in elementary school and would see the TV cart come rolling in and get so excited for it because I knew that could only mean one thing: MOVIE DAY! Kids do get excited to watch movies/videos in class. The real dilemma with it becomes the fact of kids sleeping or not paying attention to the video. My teachers always found ways around this, whether that was worksheets to go along with it or have a pop quiz after. Video in education and the classroom can actually serve a purpose if they are educational and can be used to teach your children something. Videos also provide the visual and auditory learners to both retain the information in the ways they best learn.

    As a teacher, I personally see myself using video in my classroom to further explain things and just to give life to the lesson. I think the videos in my classroom will be used to further explain a topic that I describe or maybe even explain it from a different level. In my classroom, I think the biggest role videos will play will be sort of like an assistant and as an assertive tool. It's role will be simple: help me out by assisting me by further explaining things and being assertive by giving life to the lesson and making the kids want to pay more attention. I mean, lets be honest, I would rather watch an educational 5 minute video than listen to a teacher lecture for 5 mins. For more ways to use video in the classroom, follow this link http://blogs.techsmith.com/for-educators/ten-ways-to-use-video-in-the-classroom/

    In order to use videos effectively in my classroom, preparation will be involved. There is no way to use video unless you yourself understand what is going on and know how to incorporate it into your lesson. For example, if you wanted to teach your kids the alphabet and make sure they have the hang of it, you could incorporate a comical video, like the one featured below, to truly capture the children's attention and wrap their heads around the alphabet. This video would be an example of a video that was already made but would serve the right purpose.

   In my classroom, I think it would be hard to have students create their own videos at such a young age, seeing as I want to teach Kindergarten. I do think that the further down the line you get in elementary school, the more the students would be able to create videos. For example, 4th and 5th graders would be able to make their own videos, maybe about bullying, which is what this elementary student did in this example video.

    

    One idea I have for using videos in a Kindergarten classroom would maybe creating a video as a class together. One thing you could do would allow the students to find images online that they would want to use in a video if they were to create one and then you could pile all the images together and create a classroom video. For example, you could tell the students to find pictures of the different stages of plant growth and put them together as a class and make a class video. This would allow the students to have some part of the video making process, sort of getting their foot in the door. Baby steps at its finest!

Tablets or Laptops?

The decision is yours..

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VS.

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    Tablets are the new "thing". In classrooms today, more and more teachers are beginning to use tablets instead of laptops. Many teachers see them as having more advantages for usage and think they soon will replace laptops. In an article on Scholastic, two educators are going head to head on whether iPads or laptops in the classroom are better (http://www.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=3757847). Gary Stager, who is all for laptops, admits that he has an iPad at home that he enjoys watching tv on, but he says for what is needed to be done in the classroom, a laptop is a must. He says unfortunately, "the iPad can't do the things I most value in a computer for learners". He thinks does admit that tablets could have the potential to take over classrooms but at the moment, he doesn't think they should. "Tablets could have all the functionality of a laptop, but they don't. Until they do, I recommend schools invest in laptops for student use".

   On the other hand, Dan Brenner believes tablets are the way to go. He also admits, like Stager, that he has both a laptop and a tablet and uses both on different occasions. However, Brenner says when it comes to a tool for the classroom, "it (laptop) pales in comparison with the tablet". He says the school wanted to give out tablets to their students so they could provide students with a device that was easily portable, a device that would allow them to communicate with their teachers/other students easily, allow students to be creators of their work and use their imagination, and in the end, create a "paperless" environment. Brenner says with the tablet, all of these goals were met. Brenner knows that laptops can be used in the classroom but with all going on, "the iPad can do just about anything and at a weight and size that can't be matched by any laptop of similar cost". 

   In the end, both men have excellent points when it comes to the laptop versus tablet debate. If I had to choose which one I would personally use in my classroom, I would pick tablets. For teaching elementary school kids, I definitely would say that tablets have an advantage over laptops. Tablets provide younger kids the opportunity to use their imagination and creation with the many different apps that are available. Jeffrey Grove Elementary Schools in Raleigh, NC has a link on their website that provides teachers and parents with educational apps for different subjects that their students can use (http://www.jeffreysgrovees.net/ipad-apps-for-education.html). Tablets can be used in elementary schools maybe a little more than older grades because I feel like the apps that are out there are more based towards younger kids. Also, elementary school kids are not going to need laptops because they aren't going to be writing papers or making a PowerPoint. Mostly everything a kid in elementary school needs is on a tablet. 

This video provides a little more insight on just how efficient a tablet can be. 

   

   I definitely would have tablets in my classroom. I'm not saying I won't have computers around in the classroom but for teaching, I would definitely incorporate tablets into my lesson plans. To me, a kindergartner or first grader would have a better understanding of how to use a tablet than a laptop. They would be easier for them to carry around and their parents, if they needed to buy it, wouldn't have to spend as much money then if they were buying a laptop. Tablets can be used as a leeway into technology for younger kids in elementary schools and that is why I would use them over laptops in my classroom. In the end, the decision is yours... Laptops... or Tablets...

Wikipedia Assignment:

   For the Wikipedia assignment that we had to do, I edited my high school page, Eugene Ashley High School (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_Ashley_High_School). For this assignment, we also had to create a page of our own and write a blog about yourself. To do this, we had to create a user name, and mine was Tldavi10. When I think about this assignment, it really doesn't bother me. I think it is crazy that you can edit the page at your own free will. I do think this is a negative and positive thing. It is negative because people can most whatever they want on there and it is positive because it can teach a lesson. No one edited my work, which I guess is a good thing. I wouldn't want anyone editing my page, which is ironic because we edited someone else's page. After this assignment is over, I don't think I will regularly stay up to date with my page I edited/created. I don't think the page I edited had been checked in over two years so I don't think they will ever look on there and notice any changes, so what is the point of me continuing to check it. I won't keep up with the page I created because there really isn't anything special about it. I don't think I will really edit any more pages in the future because I see no point, unless I was trying to show someone that you really can edit Wikipedia and put whatever you want to on there. I don't think I would use Wikipedia in my classroom unless it was to teach my kids that you can really edit any page you want. It would teach them that you have to be careful of what websites you are using, especially Wikipedia, because you don't know how reliable or accurate the information is.