Since one of the assignments during my student teaching is to video record myself teaching a lesson, watch it then self-reflect on what I did well and what I could improve on, I figured why not bring this technology and process into the classroom? I thought this would also be an exciting addition to our student “technologist” job! Of course, I created a parent letter to send home and made sure it was allowed by the principal and my MT.
Technology for Student Assessment
This past week, I divided the students up into groups to perform Readers’ Theater stories. As my pre-assessment, I had each student finish the sentences “When I read out loud, I feel that I am really good at…” and “When I read out loud, I feel that I could work on…” This gave each student a personal goal to work on while practicing and performing. As each group performed, the “technologist” used my Sony Bloggie to record the performances. They were so excited to be recorded! Also, we switched jobs so it was exciting to see the “ex” technologist teach the new technologist the rules and how to use the Bloggie.
Next week, I will put each group’s video on all of the classroom computers. I decided to turn this into one of the center activities for the week! They’ll get to watch their performance and then self-reflect on their oral reading skills using the same sentences as the pre-assessment. Since there were a few students who were in a different classroom during the performances, I recorded them reading a book to me.
To keep this technology in the classroom, I am going to allow the students to sign out the Bloggie with a partner to record each other reading out loud, but only after they have completed their AR goal for the week. Each student who is recorded will have to fill out a self-evaluation sheet after s/he watches the video.
I think this will build oral reading and comprehension skills as well as self-esteem. I have had a couple students tell me that they don’t like reading because they’re not good at it, but actually they were excellent readers! I’m hoping that this will have an exciting and positive academic influence on the students!
Sarah C says
This is a good way to further your lessons with one of your assignments! The kids will probably have a lot of fun with this! And it’s good that you have them doing this after they have completed their AR goal for the week! All work and then play! 🙂
Penny says
Like it! We have historians each week who take pictures that then get put into a PDF which goes home through email. Students can then talk to their parents about what happened that week. I’ve got K’s and they love taking the pictures.
Barbara G. says
Way to turn up the HEAT (Higher-level thinking, Engagement, Authenticity, Technology), Justin. Will they be able to post their work online for their parents to see or to share with other students? Or could they show it in the cafeteria? That’d be yummy food for thought. Your students are lucky learners!
Justin Nacarato says
Thanks for the comments, everyone! This was a very exciting activity for the students. Next week we’ll be starting on KidBlog.org, and posting the videos for the students and parents to comment on is an idea I have in mind (depending on how much storage I’ll have on the blogs)!
Jill says
This sounds like a great idea! I bet the kids really loved it too. I will have to remember this for the future.