Sunday, April 24, 2016

Video Note Taking

Notepad, Memo, Pencil, Writing, NoteI regularly show short videos in class but I haven't done anything to help students learn to pick out what they need to know in the video.  In the past, when I've had them take notes, they just scribble anything down regardless of relevance.  In college, when I took notes, I'd take almost everything down since I didn't know how to take proper notes.

I have a goal of working with students next year on note taking in general and video note taking in specific.  One site suggests students  watch the video and then write down notes afterwards but I don't think that is as effective with ELL students.  Another way is to take notes while watching the video.  I know from past experience, they will write down unimportant things like "a girl rode a bike down the street" which has nothing to do with the rate times time equals distance.

I found this site which focuses on the best way to take notes for online and off line courses. The author makes several great suggestions starting with taking the notes by hand because most of us get distracted when we try to take notes on the computer.  Even if you have an app to take notes on, you often have to switch between the app and the video.  I found mention of a web tool that allows a person to watch the video while taking notes on a split screen but I cannot find any information on it since the last review of the tool in 2014.  The only URL seems to lead to an expired domain.  If I can find it, I'll provide information in a future

The second thing suggested is to only take down the "meat" and not every single thing the professor says.  This can easily be applied to watching short videos because they can write down the equations or short phrases.  The best suggestion I saw is for students to review their notes.  The author did comment that students should do notes by hand but they can type in the notes on the computer or note taking app.

Since I'm off Monday, I've left a Numb3rs episode to watch.  I found a nice graphic organizer for students to use to take notes as they watch the show.  Its a Key Facts Graphic Organizer from Freeology which asks them to find events, people, key terms, and facts.  It gives them a guide since I won't be there so they have a way of organizing the material.

Next fall, I am planning on giving students lessons on take notes off of math videos as that does require a different skill than say watching a video in English or Social Studies and they may not be able to transfer those particular skills.  It is said that you loose 40% of what you saw in a video within 20 minutes after its over.  So I'm adding another skill to my list of things for next year.