I think a penny has finally dropped. I’ve been mulling over blended learning for a while but have never quite summoned up the energy. I’ve also been thinking about ways I can apply the DRY (Don’t Repeat Yourself) principle to my teaching, so I can spend more time doing the fun parts of teaching.
Slower than most, I suspect, but I have had my mini-Damascus moment. One of the more repetitive parts of my work is explaining worked problems from the necessary evil that is practice papers. By recording myself working through these I could, in theory, only have to explain a working out once and point students to the video.
One of my classes is a scholarship maths set so I’m trialling the process with them. My first bash is this: answers to the Mathematics Paper B from the Eton King’s Scholarship 2014.
In terms of the mechanics, I’ve bought an IPEVO Point 2 View Camera so I could scribble down my workings out. It’s a little fiddly but seemed to be the cheapest option short of buying a tablet.
In terms of sound, that’s recorded directly to my Macbook and the video files are unedited from the IPEVO bundled software. Levels are a little low, but that may just be me mumbling self-consciously.
Do let me know if you see mistakes, better solutions or have questions about the explanations. Equally, any tips as to how to improve the actual video gratefully received!