When it comes to science, I think digital video has a great use when it comes to demonstrations. Not only do students enjoy knowing that they are being filmed, their creations can be shown to future classes. If repeating the same project for a few years, it can evolve and you can incorporate new ideas every year. It can be simple film without any editing or you can bring your kids down to the computer lab to give their work some extra pizazz.
In this first video, students demonstrate how they created a simple motor. Very simple, yet I’m sure the students enjoyed the experience.
I think Marc Prensky, author of Digital Game Based Learning, would appreciate this next example. Students teach about the basic parts of the cell using a video game called Halo 3. The audio gets a bit loud at times, but you can hear the enthusiasm for the project in the student’s voice. Take a look…
Finally, this last video showcases a couple of students in an experiment to see of cold air really sinks. It looks like it was done at home, in which case you would either have the student use his or her own video camera or you would need to have them sign out a school camera. If you are doing a project like this with a class, it can be tricky. If students are using their own video camera and you plan on editing the video, make sure you take a good look at the camera. From my experience with Macs, the cameras should have a firewire connection (most do). There’s always that chance that you run into one of those cameras that just won’t work for what you need. What’s the saying…an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.