“Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself.” —John Dewey

It’s impossible to go through life and not learn and gain wisdom along the way. In today’s world, kids are learning new things on their own using the tools available to them on the internet, especially video sharing tools. The role of the teacher is now more of an art form in helping students not only learn the academics they need to succeed but equip them with the skills for life and finding value in the learning they are asked to do at school.

Bring Value

How do you engage and motivate your students to value their learning? Designing the learning experiences that have great interactions is key. Instructional methods like project-based learning, game-based learning, cooperative/collaborative learning can help students find value in their learning. Another and maybe easier method to begin with is bringing in more authentic audiences into your lessons. Giving students more opportunities to write, speak, demonstrate, present to more than just the teacher brings more value and higher engagement.

Elevating the learning with authentic audiences might include more class discussions, putting on a small play for the whole school, presenting to a group of community members, entering a national competition, like the New York Times Personal Narrative Writing Contest, or posting their learning to social media platforms for the entire world to give feedback.

Where to begin increasing value in your classroom

Before having students share to large audiences, start small right within your classroom. You probably already have students stand and present to the class. Take that a step further and integrate some technology into the learning. Have your students share their learning or ideas through videos. Some uses of video sharing might include:

• Posting video responses to a discussion prompt for young children who can’t read or write yet
• Creating how-to videos for parents or other students to watch
• Publishing a finished video demonstrating or showcasing their work and getting feedback from classmates

Benefits of video sharing

Allowing students to record themselves in the comfort of their own home or when they are prepared can ease some anxieties about presenting to an audience.

The videos can be posted privately in a controlled environment or publicly to a specific audience. Along with demonstrating the learning or understanding, students can bring in their own creativity with fun backgrounds, animations, sound effects, and so much more.

Common Tools for video sharing

Some of the more common tools for video sharing include:

• Seesaw (seesaw.me) for recording and sharing in class or with the world, especially for lower elementary
• Flip (flip.com) for recording responses to prompts and sharing in class
• Screencastify (screencastify.com) for screen recording and how-to demonstrations
• Youtube (youtube.com) for sharing videos either privately or publicly