Reading through some of my peers’ Week 2 Posts, I feel a better appreciation of the significance video can play on students’ lives and learning experiences. As some people noted, today people can work towards becoming YouTubers, a career that might have been unimaginable for many during YouTube’s fledgling years.
Videos can be used as a communication tool to push learners to improve themselves. Knowing that they can rewatch themselves, they put greater care and pride into their actions and words. However, like any tool, it can be a double-edged sword. Used thoughtlessly it can lose its impact or it can demoralize others. Reading through the comments I recalled a colleague’s experience at her previous school. Her school had spent the last school year online, so for graduation, the Grade 6 students had to film and submit a video message. They had several months to work on it, but there were a couple students who did not submit anything by June. They were unable to come up with the perfect video. Their parents sent some of the “failed” videos, but there was nothing wrong with them. Several days ago I showed my students the Dove Evolution video as a prelude to a unit on retouching and editing images. My students (Grade 3) saw nothing wrong with having the model’s face retouched digitally because the purpose is to get people to buy the product. Some of them believe that it isn’t good to wear makeup because it’s lying, but that everyone uses some sort of photoshop or filters on their photos online. I’m not sure if the belief about makeup is due to their age, perhaps their parents told them this because they don’t want their 8-year old children to wear it, I wasn’t able to get a clear answer about this, but I was surprised how blasé they were about digital touchups and the need for perfection in videos and advertisements. Next month my class will be making some videos to share online with their families in place of a school-held event. The posts of my classmates and my students’ comments show that there is value in creating videos, but I need to be wary of avoiding any “perfection” pitfalls.