This week in EDCI 336, we had a lecture on video creation using Screencastify and H5P. Guest speaker Rich McCue (I will link his Twitter account at the end of this post) came and shared his experience with video creation and editing. He also shared a multitude of resources we as educators can use to create more visually engaging and helpful content for our students. Many of us had never tried Screencastify or H5P before, and thought, “why would we use this when we can just use the screen record tool on our personal devices?” However, we soon realized that there are so many more features available when using Screencastifty and H5P, and it opened our minds to many new possibilities. After this lecture was complete, we were able to record a demonstration video of our choice using Screencastiy, and add an interactive element using H5P. The video below is my demonstration, and it’s one that I think all of us WordPress users can benefit from. I highlight some of my favourite and most used features within WordPress for others to learn from, and take advantage of, in their blog posts.

This experience was highly beneficial and important for me, as I have never really been good with video editing. I always use iMovie, but find it lacks a lot of the features I’m looking for. Having Rich not only share other resources, but give us a step-by-step walk through on how to use them, was greatly appreciated. I can now use these resources when creating lessons and learning resources for not only my students, but their parents as well. I find that when my sister asks me for help with school, I don’t remember or I don’t know how it is being taught by the teacher. Having interactive videos with pictures, questions and other videos embedded is incredibly helpful for students to go back on when they need help, replay when they are confused, and show to their parents for extra support. I’m really glad we had the opportunity to practice these features in class, as it forced me to push past my fear of technology and try it out. When I did try it, I realized how easy it is to use. I would have never had that realization if I wasn’t required to practice in class. This lecture is such a perfect example of how beneficial this technology course is, and how useful all the concepts are that we are covering. I remember being enrolled into this class and thinking, “technology? For elementary students?” I had no idea what we would be covering or how it could be beneficial, but I have learned so much. I have become more comfortable using technology and I now have a wide variety of resources I can lean on for the benefits of my students and myself. It’s important we as teachers have these experiences, as we are teaching and raising children in a society that is dominated by technology. It goes back to the film “Most Likely to Succeed.” We can’t teach children what we know about technology, as our knowledge is outdated. This also means we can’t cater our lessons to our own tech preferences. We need to teach these students how to evolve in the technology world, as we are preparing them for jobs that haven’t even been created yet. This means that we as teachers also need to learn how to evolve in the technology world, and break past our fears of failure. This is why I’m so grateful for this course.

Photo by Thomas Park on Unsplash

Because of this experience with Rich, I now have a wide range of technology tools that I plan to incorporate in not only my lessons as a teacher, but my projects as a university student. I think it will allow for an in depth understanding for students, and it will make my work stand out in a crowd. Being technology competent is something that I have always wanted to be, and having a step-by-step workshop has definitely increased my confidence when it comes to the digital world. Below is the link that Rich shared, and we followed, in order to understand some of these tools! I have also included his Twitter account as previously mentioned.

https://uviclibraries.github.io/video-editing/ (UVic Digital Scholars Commons).

https://twitter.com/richmccue?lang=en

Photo by Thomas Park on Unsplash