In this week’s lesson, we discussed the value of educational videos both for our future students and ourselves as learners. Personally, I haven’t used many educational videos and so it’s not a form of educational resource that I often consider. While I love documentaries and podcasts, I struggle with simultaneously keeping track of both the audio and visual in instructional videos. I find myself constantly passing, jumping back too far, skipping too far ahead, and overall becoming impatient and frustrated. However, when we were asked to discuss things we’d learned from instructional education videos, I thought long and hard and began to recall memories from Precalculus 11 I think I had previously blocked out. That was the first and only math class I ever truly struggle with and the videos produced by the Khan learning academy were vital to my success. Plotting Quadratic Functions was a concept I could not seem to wrap my head around and no amount of class notes or examples done on the board could seem to help me. I remember using the Khan Academy videos because I could watch them do the math, listen to them talk about it, or both, as many times as I needed. While I’m generally someone who prefers written instruction, this was a case where instructional education videos were far more useful. I had never previously considered making my own instructional education videos, this class made me realize how important they could be for students who learn especially well through that input. I think it could be useful to do surveys with students, asking if they would be interested in receiving an educational video of specifically challenging topics. By designing the videos myself, I can ensure they are learning certain processes the same way as the rest of the class and try to personalize them to my student’s most effective learning style. While I initially struggled with screencasting, I think I’m beginning to get the hang of it Hopefully, by the time I’m out there teaching, I will have it mastered and be ready to make quick, easy, and awesome educational videos for my students!