Sharing People's Stories on Video and Social Media

Submitted by Julie McKinney on Thu, 01/29/2015 - 15:05
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Hi Everyone,

A colleague who runs a health center for Chinese immigrants is interested in finding ways to share patients' stories through video or social media. The point is to let people hear from others who are going through similar issues. Although this request was to help share patients' stories, I can see how this could also be a good way to help adult learners to feel that they are not alone. Also, adult literacy classes could be good places to do some kind of video project, even for a health center. The benefits to the learners would be having their voice heard and used to help others, and a way to use their English and public speaking skills. Stories could also be used as a writing activity before the filming.

So I'm wondering if anyone has done a video or other social media project with students. If so, please let us know how it worked and share any tips!

Thanks very much,

Julie

Comments

Hi Julie,

I would be glad to talk with your colleague about making videos of students. A few tips:

  • Be sure to have a good release form, and to go over it in the student's first language, especially if the video will be shown on the Web. Students (and teachers) need to give permission to have their image used in public media.
  • Be careful with sound. Echo-y classrooms can be a problem. Use lapel mics where you can, or small group (cushioned) table mics if you can't
  • Plan to shoot more than you need and to edit the video into a short segment. 1-3 minutes seems to me to be the right length, in most cases, for a video of a student talking.

If you/anyone would like to see authentic adult education classroom videos that my colleague and I have made, including in English language learning classrooms, go to http://mlots.org .  We haven't made a health literacy video yet, although we would be interested if there were a health literacy teacher who wanted to have us come to her/his class. If the class is within an hour of Boston we might do this pro bono; If not, for expenses and the cost of editing the video.

David J. Rosen

djrosen123@gmail.com