In middle and secondary school I have many students who want to complete their assignments via video creation and I am happy to provide these opportunities. But while I can just let my students muddle through the process and sort it out themselves, there are a few easy, basic things that people can do in order to really amp up their videos so teaching a few quick tips and tricks will improve most student content creation (something most students want to do since the class usually watches the videos at some point). The point is, students can now just make videos with their smart phones, including the shooting, the editing, the audio dubbing, the effects, and the publishing. The things that students can do with these phones may well exceed a teacher’s understanding, but if your students are going to be making videos, a teacher can still create mini-lessons that make use of Video Primary (for example) to teach the students how to improve their content creation. When it comes to mobile technology, the high-end cameras and video software that they often come packed with these days will be utilized by students, out of class certainly but hopefully in class as well. As such, it’s important that even if I am a social studies teacher, I still have to be able to support students with the technology being utilized in the class, even if it’s their own personal mobile device (in my opinion, anyway).
Here is a very straight forward video for example that you may show the class, or just pockets of students who want to work with videos in your class; it’s easy to see how the teacher can build a mini-lesson from these tips, even without first-hand knowledge of the technology: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=am7kaAerVCQ&ab_channel=ThinkMedia Note* this example is the bare basics, I would envision a deeper dive as the students/activities went along.