Colleagues,

Suppose we had a free video library of  500 digital videos ( from 3  
minutes to 15 minutes each) of adult education classrooms.  Suppose  
these were made and edited by adult education teachers and their  
colleagues (and students) using local digital video and editing  
equipment.  Suppose some of these videos -- those that were  
successful illustrations of EFF content standards or state content  
standards or curriculum frameworks, for example -- were each awarded  
prizes of $500 by state professional development centers.  Suppose  
these videos were online free, for example on Google, but also  
indexed in a searchable database so that teachers, administrators and  
professional developers could find good video examples -- in practice  
-- of a concept, standard, or teaching method they wanted to see.  
Concepts such as "integrating technology in the classroom,"  
"formative assessment," "standards-based numeracy,"  "project-based  
learning,"  "effective teaching in the ESOL multilevel classroom" and  
many others ,might be illustrated through actual video examples from  
practice.

How do we get started with this?

1. Teachers need to follow Barry Burkett's example and make videos of  
their teaching and upload them to Google for others to see.  At  
first, the quality may not be ideal, but quality can be achieved in  
time with better editing software, better mic-ing of sound, more  
cameras, more time to edit. Teachers can get good at making videos.   
They can then teach their students these skills, too. (Or maybe some  
students already have the video skills and can share them with the  
teacher!)

2. State literacy resource centers need to provide teachers with  
incentives to do this "project based" professional development.  The  
incentive could be in the form of $500 mini-grants to rent or  
purchase equipment or software, or to pay for a teacher's time to  
make and edit the videos.  The incentive could also be in the form of  
($500) prizes for videos that were selected as exemplary, to be used  
in state professional development or curriculum standards work.

3. We need a database. Once we have it, we need reviewers who will  
look at and tag the videos so they can be found in the database using  
commonly used adult education terms.

I would be interested in your thoughts about this idea. I would be  
even more interested to know if you, or teachers you know, are  
excited enough about this to get started, to make a video of  
classroom teaching and learning.  If so, visit http:// 
wiki.literacytent.org/index.php/Google_videos for more information on  
how to get started and e-mail me about your interest in this idea.

David J. Rosen
djrosen at comcast.net