Embedding Video as a stimulus for Writing
Overview
Avril Denton – P7(1) teacher at Girvan Primary, South Ayrshire
Avril Denton has recently taken up post as Primary 7 Teacher at Girvan Primary School in South Ayrshire. She had used Glow in her last school, Pinwherry Primary and wanted to begin using it to support learning and teaching at Girvan. One of the first activities they undertook was using video embedded into a web part in the group as a stimulus for writing in relation to the novel The Desperate Journey by Kathleen Fidler.
In this Cookbook we will focus on how Avril has used a range of web parts in a page of the Glow group to provide the video stimuli for pupils, explain the task and upload their finished work.
This first video clip provides a short tour around this page of Girvan’s Primary 7 class Glow group.
What does the ‘Story Writing’ page of the class Glow group look like? (0:48)
Context
Being P7 teacher is quite different for Avril at Girvan in terms of being able to use Glow as in her previous school at Pinwherry she had a P5-P7 composite class which was much smaller and was able to access a computer for every pupil. Girvan presented a challenge as to getting her pupils onto using Glow for both class activities and homework. The classroom adjoining Avril’s has an interactive whiteboard and a number of pupil machines and whenever the other class are out on another activity Avril takes the opportunity to use this space with her pupils.
Girvan P7(1) Glow Group
The class Glow group is acting as a place where various class activities are presented and delivered and in addition Glow Learn is being utilized for some homework tasks. The pupils had been involved in a separate activity using an embedded video of a rollercoaster ride as a stimulus for personal writing and they had responded well to this.
The class were being asked to look at the section in the novel where the family’s coft at Culmailie is set on fire. They are asked to imagine they are interviewing an eyewitness at the scene and to prepare a newspaper report on this. Avril wanted to embed a video she had found on YouTube showing a fire in a croft and also a video another school had put together which was an animation of a section of the book showing the fire. These videos are embedded onto the page in the class Glow group along with instructions for creating the report and a document library for the pupils to upload their finished reports to.
The Curriculum for Excellence Outcomes being covered in this innovative way by Avril are LIT 227AE I can convey information, describe events, explain processes or combine ideas in different ways. SOC 2-03a I can investigate a Scottish historical theme to discover how past events or the actions of individuals or groups have shaped Scottish society.
This Cookbook will focus on how to embed video into an xml web part in a page of a Glow group, along with accompanying sections on how to post instructions for the pupils in a text editor web part and how to create an additional specific document library to enable pupils to upload their finished work.
Avril wanted the pupils to feel that they could really get a feel for what seeing a fire would be like and bring this aspect from real life into the classroom to help the pupils bring this into their newspaper reports. By putting the finished reports into a common document library it allowed the pupils to participate in peer assessment with each other’s work and lead to a further activity where this could be focused on.
In this cookbook, we will find out:
• What the ‘Story Writing’ page of the Girvan Primary School P7(1) group looks like
• How a range of web parts have been used
• How to replicate it
• What the impact was
Ingredients
What did Avril initially need to allow the pupils to view the embedded video and upload their finished work?
- A Glow Group
- A Story Writing Page
- 2 xml web parts
- Embed code for a video from YouTube
- A text editor web part for the activity instructions
- A new Document Store for them to upload their finished newspaper reports into
It was also necessary to ensure pupils had Contributor rights within the Glow Group to enable them to upload documents.
In the next section, we’ll take a look at the class Glow group and learn how to recreate elements within it.
P7 (1) Girvan Primary Story Writing Page
Recipe
The first video below (referred to above) shows the ‘Story Writing’ page of the class Glow group and the uses made of a range of web parts. The videos that then follow show how these elements can be recreated. Details are:
Video Clips
What does the ‘Story Writing’ page of the class Glow group look like? (0:48)
Creating a ‘Story Writing’ page in the Group (1:05)
Adding an xml web part to the page (1:18)
Searching on YouTube for a suitable video and copying the embed code (1:18)
Allowing the xml web part to display the video (1:57)
Adding an additional video onto the page (1:44)
Adding a text editor web part and adding instructions to it (4:00)
Creating and adding a new document library (3:00)
A Tour of the Girvan P7(1) Glow Group (6:02)
Impact
There are 3 short video clips here. Firstly, Avril herself describes the activity and the impact and then some of the pupils speak about how it was helpful to have the video in the group to help with writing their newspaper reports.
Having the video clips available directly into the Glow Group meant that the pupils could place themselves in the world of Culmaillie and as a witness to the actual fire. It made writing their newspaper reports all the easier through having the videos available to be looked at whenever helped – whether in school or at home. Having the document library available on the same page meant that pupils could upload their finished work directly to the Glow Group and that these pieces of work could be available for peer assessment later.
Short comment from Avril Denton on video clips (0:12)
Short clips with pupils’ reaction to using Glow in this way in class
Marie, Danielle and Sean on embedded video clips (0:44)
Chloe and Sarah on embedded video clips (0:44)
