Classroom Videos With YouTube

Why YouTube? Because that's where my kids are anyway.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I have started a classroom blog (Room 755). It is a daily post of our activities in class, with a little commentary at times. Hey, I'm the writer, publisher, and editor - I can do what I want, right?

Well, today in class, my students began putting pencils to poster board (computers will come later Web 2.0 folks). I interviewed each group about where they were in the process. I asked several questions before my Flip Camera began recording, so the students knew what I was looking for when I came to their table.

I took my Flip to my MacBook, converted the .AVI files to .MP4 files using iSquint, then uploaded the videos to YouTube. Most videos were between 15-25 seconds. It took about a total of 90 minutes to do all this and post the links to my Room 755 blog.

Yes, that is time intensive. But my students were excited to know that they had the opportunity to be "seen" online. No faces are shown...just voices and poster board.

If you would like to take a look, you can go to my YouTube channel or Room 755.

P.S. - My kids think it is pretty cool that Miguel and Steven have commented. Thanks guys. Any others who want to drop by?

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The views expressed here are my own and reflect only my opinion.
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Hero in the Hallway video

I have posted this video on bullying on our Media Center blog, Classroom 2.0 at Ning, and now here. Several bloggers are mentioning this video, but I first saw it from Steve Dembo at Teach42 this morning.




The thing that really made me follow through with posting and promoting the video is two-fold:

1. The comments on the YouTube page demonstrate the video's power on people who were bullied.
2. It was created by two guys (are they brothers?), Kyle Barrett (University of Illinois) & Bobby Barrett (Cary Grove High School). I am assuming they are students, although they could be professor, high school teacher. I want to find out more about them, because they are good at their craft. (Secretly, I hope they are students.)

The video is being used as a promotional video for The Spirit Desk, LLC. It does appear that the creators of the video are students. As I clicked through the Spirit Desk web site, there is a mention of a Cary Grove student receiving a Hero Award.

Bullying is something students face everyday...in every school. It is a part of growing up...an unfortunate part, but real nonetheless. There may be differing levels of bullying, but it is bullying nonetheless. Some incidents may be more obvious than others, but students go to school intimidated by someone else...everyday...in every school... Some kids are being bullied, but they may not realize this is what is happening. Taking a pencil, cutting in line, name-calling, shoving, the stares of intimidation, the jokes... "Oh, we are just playin' around," they say. But are they? Where might it lead?

No I don't have statistics, but you know what??? Some things don't need statistics to be true. Sometimes it takes only a moment to observe students in the hallway between classes, and if you are honest, you will know you have seen bullying sometime during the day. Let me know if you think I'm wrong. I can take it.