This week in our technology and innovation class we learnt about the importance of educational videos. Personally, I think that educational videos are great. I believe that they provide a diverse method of instruction to students by promoting listening, engaging and reflection. Since students are in the classroom for around 25-30 hours per week, teacher instruction can become rather repetitive to students. Although teaching verbal lessons to students is of course the most effective method, teaching through educational videos also holds its benefits. By listening to educational videos, educators can teach their students in videos instructed by others or through the use of visuals. Incorporating videos into daily lessons can enable students to hear instruction from guest speakers (those speaking in the videos) or through the use of diagrams, visuals or storylines. Also, by providing videos in the classroom, teachers are able to pause the videos to provide their input, ask the students questions during the videos and facilitate post-video discussion in the classroom. Teachers are able to use videos to teach various subjects and promote interaction in the classroom and diversify their lessons.

When we had our Wednesday visits into elementary classrooms last semester, I recall my mentor teacher using educational videos for particular lessons. Our teacher would use calm and relaxing videos during quiet time, where students could listen to ocean waves and the video would run through a sequence of relaxing videos to prepare students for a down time. In addition to quiet time videos, I believe that their is a plethora of ways that educational videos can be integrated into the classroom. For example, educational videos can be an author reading aloud a story book for students to follow, a math instructional video that diversifies how to count or add, or even introducing students to the number line or reading. Educational videos can also be as simple as playing the students a short cartoon clip at snack time to get them familiar with sounds and reading. While the students are watching they will be enjoying the video and its visuals, while also learning from it simultaneously.

Two weeks ago I created an iMovie for my weekly reflection post. Even as the author of the video, I found it enjoyable to make and it provided a diverse way of explaining my inquiry topic. This enhanced my understanding of the importance of educational videos and made me realize that instruction and explanations can be portrayed and taught through the use of videos.