Introduction

What does editing mean? Talk about when the children edit their writing, what sort of things does this involve? Adding or taking away content, changing and improving content or correcting content that is wrong.

Explain that in the coming lessons  they will be working on video creation and editing. This will involve bringing together clips of video, audio, text and images for a particular purpose. 

Technology around video has changed quickly, but just how is a video created? Where a normal still camera captures a single image at a time, a video camera rapidly captures a series of still photographs (frames) to film or a digital image sensor. The frames are then played back quickly in succession to create the illusion of motion.

 

 

Image from: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Motion_interpolation_example.jpg#filelinks

 

Cameras themselves have changed from large heavy and expensive devices that required large physical tapes to be loaded into them, to digital recording large amounts of footage can be stored on a tiny memory card.  The birth of smartphones and tablets has also made it incredibly easy to capture video as most have at least one built in camera. This has made the process of video creation cheaper, and much more accessible to the masses. Coupled with the creation and growth of social media and video sharing sites like Youtube (2005), it's never been easier to produce video. 

 

 

It's the development of digital video that has made it so easy to create your own films. Before digital there was analogue video, and before that film. Film was very time-consuming to edit after the footage had been captured. You would have to cut it into pieces and stick it together with tape to make an edit (literally cutting and pasting - terms we still use with digital editing today).

 

 

Now you can take an analogue source, such as a video or audio tape, and capture it on a computer. This converts the information into a digital format where an image can be represented as a series of numbers, which allows a computer to store and reproduce the image.  This process is known as ‘digitisation’.

Editing now takes place on a timeline. You place all your content on the timeline to start building your project. It's then easy to trim clips, arrange them in order, add special effects, text and titles, music and sound clips as well. 

In this project we’re going to be creating instructional videos, what does that mean?

Before we can do a good job of creating our own it's a good idea to take a look at some examples and decide on what will make a good one.  Have you ever watched instructional videos at home? 

What would you expect to see in an instructional video? What features might they include? 

Take a look at some of these examples. As the students watch allow them to take notes and look out for common features:

• How to tie your tie  (0:54)
• How to knead bread  (1:09)
• How to fix a puncture  (4:34)
• How to draw a cartoon dog  (2:20) 
• How to find the area of a rectangle  (3:27)
• How to transform a shape  (1:13)

(Please note, all videos are hosted on Youtube, and are embedded in the lesson slides)

Ask the students:

• What features did you identify?
• Which ones were easiest to follow? Why?
• What different styles did you see?
• Was there anything you didn’t think worked?

They should notice some of the following features, if not, bring their attention to them: 

• Clear title or purpose at the beginning of the video - what is it showing?
• Break the problem down into small steps
• Explain what you’ll need (if appropriate)
• Use the correct vocabulary
• Repeat the correct vocabulary
• Give examples
• Summarise at the end

Put the students into pairs.  Explain that as a class they will be creating helpful tutorial videos for each other to use with their learning. They will be the creators and the audience! At the end of the project we will share all the videos so they are easy for everyone to access. 

 

Planning their video

It's up to you how much direction you give your students in terms of the topics they choose for their instructional videos.  You may wish to give them a wide or more narrow choice, perhaps based upon subjects or topic areas you feel they may need to revisit and practise. We’re going to use the example of Year 6 maths concepts. 

However you choose to do it, explain that it's really important that they focus in on one specific concept and not a whole topic or subject, e.g. ratio as a concept is fine,  saying they’re going to make a  ‘maths’ video is too vague. 

Try to avoid duplicates of concepts in the class. You may wish to create a list of themes beforehand and allocate them to the different pairs. They don’t all need to be the same subject too, you may want to do half maths and half English, or perhaps if time permits get them to make one of each. 

 

What do we need to consider as we plan this out? 

• What the concept is
• How best to explain it in small steps
• Key vocabulary
• Key points of what to say  
• What visuals we’re going to show on screen as we explain it
• Common mistakes (if applicable) 
• Some practise questions we can include (with answers)

 

To help them with planning we have created this worksheet (print both sides back to back).

 

 

Here’s a completed example:

 

 

Plenary

Review their progress so far and the quality of their planning. Go back to the checklist from earlier and ask them to evaluate their own plans, have they included the following?

• What the concept is
• How best to explain it in small steps
• Key vocabulary
• Key points of what to say  
• What visuals we’re going to show on screen as we explain it
• Common mistakes (if applicable) 
• Some practise questions we can include (with answers)