In 2009 I attended a training on how to “vodcast” content. Our hosts were two teachers from Woodland Park High School, Colorado, Jonathan Bergmann and Aaron Sams. They taught us how to record video and audio … and how to edit and upload to various services.
Anyway, quite a bit has happened since our time together in the WPHS library: the term “vodcasting” was replaced with “flipping;” Jonathan and Aaron published a book on the topic and on their reflections (both have subsequently moved on from teaching at WPHS); Sal Khan, with the help of Bill Gates, forced himself into pedagogical conversation by producing and propagating thousands of video lectures; and a California-based teacher who also attended the training, Ramsey Musallam, recently gave a short-form TED talk where he explained his embrace of the following ideas:
- Curiosity comes first
- Embrace the mess
- Practice reflection
You don’t need to read Bergmann and Sams’ book or watch any of Khan’s stuff … but you should watch Musallam’s talk. He did a great job; watching and listening was well worth 6 min and 30 sec of my life.
See, what Ramsey did so nicely was he described his transition away from simply flipping lectures and pseudoteaching and into a more pure and natural and humanizing form of teaching and learning – one designed around the aforementioned three ideas. Well done Ramsey!
Precise Uncertainty 