Using Video in the classroom

I apologize for this blog entry being so late, it has completely fallen off of my mind over the past week until I came to class early today.

Anyway I am of the belief that video projects are highly useful for a classroom, and can add a lot of fun to an assignment for students. It's always been my experience that as soon as students find that a project includes making a video, their excitement and enthusiasm levels just about skyrocket. Most of these projects typically turn into something more resembling a newscast (with the news anchors and then individuals filling different roles) or a documentary type, with a host/hostess that is in different shots to show different points of her presentations. Essentially the students recreate a simple method of information delivery that allows them to be able to use easy methods of cutting from scene to scene, and be able to talk directly to the camera to present their information.
Often the project becomes more how to have fun with the video, and becomes less about the information actually being presented. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but if this starts happening, I think it would make more sense to have the students find a much more creative way to matching the video up with the actual data that they are presenting. This would have the intention of not only teaching them the subject matter, but also how video can be used to different effects and how to recreate those effects.

For instance, when presenting information about a specific topic or person, they could make a propaganda video about it. It would require a good amount of editing, but it would be a way to show not only the subject matter (which the students might be required to find creative ways to twist the truth about), but also learn how to create an overly-persuasive document for presentation.

Other examples could be advertisements or movie trailer, the "lead-in" for a show (such as Judge Judy or a series from the History Channel), a political or court room debate, or many other ideas that could be thought-up by the students (which might include a list of things they cannot do, such as advertisements & newscasts if they seem to be overused ideas), or a list could be given with different options of more complicated approaches.

Movies are a great way to find ways to present data in an alternate fashion, rather than simply repeating statistics or giving obvious examples of something. Yet even with restrictions, it seems that students should have enough enthusiasm about making a video that a teacher can take advantage of it to have the students make fantastic presentations.