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BoMToons
So many times, it happens too fast...you trade your passion for glory. Don't lose your grip on the dreams of the past, you must fight just to keep them alive.

Age 43, Male

Software Engineer

Somewhere in Nevada...

Somewhere in California..

Joined on 11/29/05

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Scratching the Creative Itch

Posted by BoMToons - October 18th, 2016


One of my big struggles with doing my student teaching has been feeling the urge to MAKE things. Teaching high-school kids can be rewarding, but when I don't have a personal creative outlet I get antsy and frustrated.

So, I started making instructional videos for my classes. Not only has it scratched my creative itch, but it's been a REALLY nice way to teach my students. They basically get a custom one-on-one learning experience with me that they can pause, rewind, and fast forward/watch at double speed (plus extra features like automatic closed-captioning for multi-modal learning). If there are extra questions, the real me is there in-person to answer them (which is much better than watching a kahn academy video or something non-personal online), but 90% of the students are learning without much real-me intervention.

The video method is also a huge boon for absent students who can watch my videos at home and get caught up almost immediately.

I feel like I'm on to something good for education. The last part of this blog post by Bill Gates helped spur me on to teaching this way.

https://www.gatesnotes.com/About-Bill-Gates/Accelerating-Innovation

Here's one of my better videos explaining what functions are in programming and how they work (I can usually knock 2 or 3 of these videos out every day during my prep. periods):

What do YOU think?


Comments

Really like it, I'm certain this will prove a hit with students

Thanks, they seem to dig it so far!

Great Job Nick! It's bound to make the material stick around in their head longer. I mean, I don't know a thing about programming and I feel like I was following along pretty well.

Thanks man, hope your kickstarter is doing well! Seems like card-based kickstarters are making a lot of cash nowadays.