"YouTube video essays are long-form (relative to many other internet videos) critical videos that make arguments about media and culture. They're usually meticulously narrated and edited, juxtaposing video footage, images, audio, and text to make an argument much like a writer would do in a traditional essay. As former YouTube talent scout Jeremy Kaye puts it, video essays "take a structured, in-depth, analytical, and sometimes persuasive approach, as opposed to the quick 'explainer' video style."
Why Are They Great for Learning?
"It's easy to dismiss a lot of what circulates on YouTube as frivolous, silly, or even obnoxious, but video essays are the opposite. They demand students' attention but not through cartoonish gesturing, ultra-fast editing, and shock value (which even some of the more popular educational YouTubers fall prey to) -- there's room to breathe in these essays. To capture attention, video essays use a time-tested trick: being flat-out interesting. They present compelling questions or topics and then dig into them using media as evidence and explication. This makes them a great match for lessons on persuasive and argumentative writing.
"Video essays model for students how YouTube can be a platform for critical communication.
"But what I really love most about video essays is that they have something at stake; they ground their arguments in important cultural or political topics, exposing the ways media represents gender or race, for instance, or how media evolves over time and interacts with the world at large. Most importantly, video essays model for students how YouTube can be a platform for critical communication."
Via
Jim Lerman
If you are looking for some great tools that will provide inspiration for learners to write stories check out this post by Richard Byrne. He provides ten tools that you may find useful.
The first section has two tools that help learners create collages, Canva, PicCollage (Android and iPad app), and PicMonkey (browser based). He also suggests using ThingLink as a tool for learners to enhance their collage (and links to a tutorial).
The second section looks at "threading images into stories." Thematic allows you to upload images and display up to twenty in a story with one line of text for each image. Storehouse is a free iPad app that allows you to use images and video and arrange them with a line of text above or below the image or video clip. Adobe Slate is a free iPad app that also allows you to create stories and has more features than Storehouse.
The final section looks at creating picture books and suggest My Storybook (web based), Picture Book Maker (web based) and Little Story Creator (free iPad app).
Each of these tools is described in more detail in the post. As this school year draws to a close your class might enjoy using one of these tools to create a story about what they have learned this year.
If you are looking for some great tools that will provide inspiration for learners to write stories check out this post by Richard Byrne. He provides ten tools that you may find useful.
The first section has two tools that help learners create collages, Canva, PicCollage (Android and iPad app), and PicMonkey (browser based). He also suggests using ThingLink as a tool for learners to enhance their collage (and links to a tutorial).
The second section looks at "threading images into stories." Thematic allows you to upload images and display up to twenty in a story with one line of text for each image. Storehouse is a free iPad app that allows you to use images and video and arrange them with a line of text above or below the image or video clip. Adobe Slate is a free iPad app that also allows you to create stories and has more features than Storehouse.
The final section looks at creating picture books and suggest My Storybook (web based), Picture Book Maker (web based) and Little Story Creator (free iPad app).
Each of these tools is described in more detail in the post. As this school year draws to a close your class might enjoy using one of these tools to create a story about what they have learned this year.