After my presentation on “Using video to shift instruction” at the 7th Virtual Round Table, I kept doing more research on the topic of using video to achieve different goals. It seems to me that this is one of the areas which can really help me develop instructional lessons for my specific teaching scenario. We are not following textbooks, we don’t even have a syllabus; my learners themselves choose the topics they want to work with. I try to guide them and organise their learning journey and I just love this, as we experiment the glory of learning and exploring different areas together.

I was thinking of blogging about my latest findings, however when Chris Rogers presented his challenge topic for the 30 Goals Challenge, “Spice up an old presentation” I thought it was a great opportunity to try to add something to the presentation I shared at the VRT, and as I am beginning to feel more and more comfortable with challenges and leaving my comfort zone seems to be my good companion, I chose to:

1. Spice up my presentation by adding some information
2. Explore ways and tools which would allow me to record slides while keeping my video which I thought would be very beneficial for sharing instructional videos with my learners as they will have this new feeling of closeness: slides, the teacher there like talking to them.
Needless to say I tried a few websites and different tools, without positive results. I looked for tutorials, though I was not sure how to search for what I wanted to do. How could I explain that I wanted a tutorial which could help me use screen-sharing of slides and video recorded material?
I practised and practised until I could come up with this presentation.

I apologise for the imperfection of the editing and mistakes I made during the recording. I am happy to have achieved this as I know it will be good for my learners and I am sure I can improve it.

I have decided to embrace the gift of imperfection, as a means to have the courage to try new things and keep moving forward, with the belief that as I fail forward I will be learning more.
Reflecting on the video, I face different dilemmas.
a. Should I look more serious and therefore come up with a more professional talk?
b. Should I prepare a script and read it, to avoid mistakes?
c. Should I write blog posts rather than video tape my ideas? (Being a non native English speaker, why do I keep recording my voice when writing could be less challenging? Does it have to do with my learning style?)
d. How much information should I include? (How long should a presentation be to be effective? I realise I cannot dig deep into topics as I was eager to share as much as possible)
I am recording almost all my learners classes and they do not only help me track their progress but the recordings also help me reflect on my role as a teacher. Trust me, I’m learning a lot about listening to understand rather to to answer, I have become a better listener and so have my learners, and I am exploring the effectiveness of error correction by re casting and by interrupting them to correct at the moment they make a mistake.