Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Teaching A Comic Lesson I Learned on Twitter

This afternoon I showed my class a YouTube video of a student in Ontario, Canada teaching his former class how to draw a cartoon character.  I've never met this student but I actively follow his previous teacher on Twitter.  I think at first my class was a bit skeptical to be learning from a boy in a classroom across the country but they were just as curious to see what he had to share.  The way the teacher filmed the video of her "young teacher" made us feel like we were sitting on the floor with her class too.

In the end it was probably one of the best directed drawing lessons we've done this year.  They were so curious to see what he was going to do next.  They remained on task at all times, and the language between one another was music to my ears.  In the end each made their own special "peanut" person and they were all so proud of their final products.

This lesson is another big change for me.  In the past I have rarely utilized YouTube with my students.  I always thought it wasn't worth the time and it was too much of a hassle to set up.  This lesson confirmed for me that I've got to use the resources available to me to their full potential.  I will once again credit this change in my teaching to my new love, Twitter.

If you're curious to see what we did please check out our class blog post here.

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