Photo by Mikhail Nilov: https://www.pexels.com/photo/a-cute-girl-recording-a-video-while-playing-ukulele-7574100/
During this class, we were encouraged to reflect on our experience of meaningful support that we have received in our learning using educational videos.
Being that my teachable subject is music, I did not have much experience in watching beneficial educational videos that were shown in my music classroom in middle or high school. The only times that we watched videos in music class was when we had a substitute teacher in, where they would typically just put on a movie. That being said, outside of the music classroom, I learned a lot of musical concepts through videos on youtube, including videos that broke down theory concepts, or ones that taught me how to practice different drumming techniques. During my undergrad, I spent a lot of time watching videos of percussionists, and would use tools like slowing videos down, and repeating sections, in order to help me understand what certain parts of a piece should sound like, and it overall made learning of specific pieces much easier.
In my future teaching, I believe that there is a lot of value in using videos in the classroom. There is a lot that videos can provide in education that I cannot, like demonstrations on instruments I have not mastered, or recordings of performances that I would not otherwise be able to bring my class to. I also think that videos can transform assessment in the music classroom. For students who feel uncomfortable playing repertoire tests in front of the class, recording videos gives them the opportunity to showcase their learning in a more private and comfortable setting, where they can record their playing on their instrument (and do so in as many takes as they need) and then submit them to me to assess.
I think that, as educators, we can use video technology to our advantage, and find ways for it to benefit our students. Though I haven’t had a lot of experience with beneficial use of video in the music classroom, I think that it does have its advantages, and I will definitely try and use it in my future educational practice.