Diversified Agriculture's Video production

     This year my agriculture class made its first round of videos.  We have slaughtered and processed different livestock in the past but the only technology we used was a digital camera.  The addition of video to the process was amazing. 
     There are several reasons that i find video to be a highly successful educational tool.  The first is that it got the class really engaged.  It allowed students who were not involved in each step to participate, while encouraging students who were involved to see the importance of doing each step to the best of their ability.  It also placed more value on the process because they were showing the rest of the world their skills.  When it came time to edit the video the students had to reflect on what they thought was an important step to show and how much time should be dedicated to each step.  Editing lasted a while and involved a lot more reflection than i would have been able to get out of them if i asked them to write a reflection.
   Another valuable part of this process was that some students excelled at this process and were able to teach other students how to edit the video, download music, edit the music, and compile the whole project.  Every student enjoyed this project, was engaged, and wanted to create the best video possible.
    This increase in engagement, quality of work produced, and reflection has inspired me to use video as a tool in the classroom more frequently.  My goal for next year is to create a video for each project we undertake. These videos will be on a blog so that parents and the community can see what we do in class.  They will also be instructional so that the students have to internalize what they have learned in order to teach it to the world.   I am extremely excited to start this project in the fall.