Will Richardson made a recent post on kids becoming producers. He was reflecting on his daughter’s use of youtube and future video creations. My 13 year old daughter recently produced a youtube video clip and is now excited about future projects. Her 9 year old brother is soon to follow in her foot steps. Will writes…

How cool is it going to be for her growing up with the ability to create and publish whatever floats her boat (as long as it’s not about paste.) And how nice that would be if she had some support to do that from the teachers at her school. (More on that later…)

I was thinking of my first attempt to use video in my classroom, in the days before youtube. I had my personal Mac laptop and video camera. My 100 students, divided into production teams of 4-6, had to create videos on a topic related to astronomy. We spent about a week of class time coming up with ideas, writing scripts and making all sorts of production notes. Since they all had to share my equipment, the class moved on to other things as each group had a turn to film and edit. In the end I made a CD for each of them with all their clips. Those kids are now in college, but when they graduated many stopped by to say hello and most mentioned that they still checkout their video clips. Each year, that I was still in the classroom, I carried out a similar project. What struck me most about this project was that 100% of my students participated. Those kids who I had trouble keeping in class, came after school, before school and gave up lunch to make their video. This was the case every year.

Will wonders what it would be like “if she had some support to do that from teachers at her school.” I was thinking how I supported my students to be engaged in learning and creatively show what they know. In my middle school we loop with our students and stay with them for two years. Many of the projects I assigned allowed for open ended products. After teaching them about making videos some of my kids continued to make videos to complete their projects. In my last year we also made podcasts (though not posted for the world to hear). Some students continued to use that as means to complete projects. I was frequently asked by my students if I would stay after school and let them use my equipment. Sometimes they were working on material for my class but sometimes for other subjects.

I believe teachers can support students by allowing them to complete a variety of projects through any number of tools. Many teachers do not have the skills or access to the equipment to make this a streamline process. Trying to organize 100 kids to use one laptop and camera was no easy feat. Maybe we could have after school groups and clubs to help students complete these types of assignments. Sort of a student production studio. Teachers, students and other volunteers can teach these skills and provide a work area for students. Those lacking these skills could still allow the use of these tools in student work, referring kids to the studio for help. I think I’ll have to give this some more thought myself. How could I get that started in my district?