Photo by Robert Verzo

by Justin Nacarato, Student Teacher & Guest Author

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.

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!