Last week I watched James Sanders' YouTube in the Classroom session during the Google Education On Air technology conference. It was very informative and it had some great resources. The idea that got me most excited was the interactive feature in YouTube videos. Viewers can click linked annotations in YouTube videos that link to other videos. There are endless possibilities with what you can do with this. I would like to try doing quizzes and maybe choose your own adventure type story telling next year. But being so close to the end of the year, and with end of grade testing coming up, I went with a simple video to try out this technique.
I recorded 10 teachers in our school offering a test taking tip to students. I uploaded those as 10 separate YouTube videos. Then I made a video of myself offering a brief introduction. Then the viewer clicks a teacher's name to view their tip. At the end of each tip, there is a link to go back to the table of contents video. I used iMovie to add that 'title' slide at the end of the tip videos.
It is a pretty simple implementation of this technique, and I wondered if it offered any benefit from just putting the teacher tips in sequential order in one YouTube video. I guess it is debatable, but I think one benefit is that students are more likely to pay attention to the tips this way. Because they are making a choice, and the tips are delivered one at a time.
Another great example and some instructions on the (simple) annotation process can be found on the Knewton blog. I love their idea of the hint box. Very cool idea. I could see having a question of the day for students to work on at the end of class, then they can submit an answer via a google docs form. Now we just need one to one in the school where I work.
See the video below.
