iPads, MakerEd and More in Education

I came upon the work of Don Goble, a multimedia instructor from St. Louis, Missouri, and his Six-Word Story, Six Unique Shots project when I was struggling with how to begin a new year in a new way. Letters from students and poster board montages bored me. The feel of a glue stick gave me hives. Don’s project gave me pause. At that time, I had never made a film and my phone’s camera challenged me. However, I took a breath and ditched the traditional. The results amazed me.

Six-Word Story, Six Unique Shots is a spin on the popular six-word memoir activity. Students begin by writing a six-word memoir, typically exploring their identity. They then create a 30-second film using only the six words of the memoir and six different types of film shots.

The structure offers students an opportunity to deeply dive into their own interiority—or not. Students share stories of addiction, body image issues, and anxiety. They also create films hailing their love of coffee. The degree of vulnerability is truly up to the individual.

You don’t need to be tech savvy or possess fancy equipment to pull off this project. All you really need is a desire to do something different. I’ll detail the schedule I use with a 90-minute block period.

"Apple has posted a series of quick videos covering some helpful iPhone photography tips. If you’re one of the many people who use their iPhone as their primary camera, you’ll likely find some of them to be informative.

You’ll find a variety of photography topics covered in the short videos, ranging from how to take pictures with depth control settings, stage light, time-lapse videos, trimming videos, taking portrait selfies, using the rule of thirds, choosing key photos for Live Photos, and more."

A video prompt you can do as a hands-on activity or in Minecraft. Transcript: You are leading a team of elite engineers and innovative architects that wil

ThingLink Edu is one of the best web tools you can use to annotate images and videos and create media rich visuals to share with your students in class. ThingLink enables you to add different layers of interactivity to your content. There are actually over 70 call to action tags to layer your content with including; web links. text, video, image, audio, maps and many more. The process to add Rich Media Tags to your content is ‘as simple as copying the URL into the Link field of the ThingLink tag editor.’

"Tis always the season with this range of holiday videos. From decorating Christmas trees with red and gold baubles to adding another log to the fire, that fuzzy feeling of Christmas can exist all year round. All stock video clips can be downloaded for free, to be used in your next awesome video project under the Mixkit License!"

There are so many ways to use videos in lessons and for post-lesson revisions (e.g. Edpuzzle and PlayPosit , previously known as Educanon); the problem sometimes is being the time it may take to locate a video which is appropriate for a specific lesson/class.

Jadrian Wooten remembers professors instructing him to check out DVD clips from the library when he was an undergrad. Today, as an associate teaching professor of economics at Penn State in University Park, Pennsylvania, Wooten is on the flip side of the camera; he creates his own short educational videos to enhance traditional reading materials and lectures. “Today’s students generally want deeper or more nuanced information from their professors,” he says. “And they like to use video to get foundational information super fast.”

Today’s students generally want deeper or more nuanced information from their professors.
University of Texas at Austin psychology instructor Brooke Miller adds that the internet and YouTube have changed instruction. “We can use short videos to help students who are falling behind—and to give more advanced students the chance to have deeper discussions in class.”

While both agree on the merits of instructional videos, they know how difficult it can be to find “perfect” content—short but not too short, engaging but not gimmicky, and offering the right information with the right level of detail. They also agree that producing original videos can be daunting: It requires competency in videography, sound, graphics, diction, and more. This is why Miller and Wooten recently teamed up with Course Hero, a platform where professionals in higher education share their teaching innovations, inspiration, and practical advice.

Extraordinary HD videos - For you to use, completely free of charge.