How YouTube web camera recordings can be used to promote instruction in the blended learning classroom

When mentoring our pre-service and in-service teachers we need to describe and model both research-based and clinically tested best practices, and demonstrate how these best practices can be applied in the real (i.e. physical) and virtual (i.e. online) classroom for both teaching and teacher training. The combination of face to face instruction in a physical setting and online learning is called blended learning. In this section of the blog we will describe how the internet can serve as a supplemental resource for instruction and the mentoring of pre-service and in-service Jewish educators.

Before we discuss how web camera recording can promote instruction in the blended learning classroom, let’s define a web camera recording


What is a web camera recording? 


A web camera recording is a visual and auditory recording of oneself speaking to the camera on a computer or some other video recording device. Sometimes a picture or video conveys meaning better than words. Consequently, let me demonstrate what a web camera recording looks like. A web camera recording is different from a screen recording or screen cast because with the web cam recording I am recording myself speaking to the camera, and not showing that which is on my computer screen. With this background, click on this link to see a demonstration of a web recording:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gikgmThki1g


How YouTube web camera recordings can be used to promote instruction in face to face and virtual classroom.

In the blended classroom YouTube web camera recordings can promote instruction in the following ways:

• Provide a visual and auditory explanation of some content or concept 
• Provide an introduction to a lesson or training event 
• Serve as an anticipatory set for a lesson 
• Serve as a prompt for an in class or online conversation 
• Provide a review of a lesson or training event that a student or teacher had missed 
• Provide a summary or closure for a lesson or training event 
• Serve as a stimulus for reflection 
• Empower students and teachers to make their own web camera presentations 
• Serve as a communication channel to answer student and collegial questions 
• Can be used to flip the classroom 


On the next post we explore how YouTube web camera recordings can be used to promote Judaic instruction and to mentor/train Jewish educators.