The Why and How of Videos and Archives

Yes, the concept is simple. But starting a new endeavor can be tough, and you may not feel fully comfortable with the technology. Don’t worry—we’ll get through this together! I’ll provide the checklists and steps you need to start recording and archiving, as well as using videos to assess your own instruction and your peers’. It’s the substance you are recording—instruction—that is the key to the success of this practice. A video archive essentially clones your teaching, and sharing videos maximizes your teaching potential. This introduction explains in more depth the why and how of videos and archives, as well as lays out the benefits for students and for teachers of these practices. Finally, I’ll go into details about this book’s organization.

In this book, I write about why and how K–12 teachers can establish, organize, share, and maintain a video archive to support any content area or curriculum. While many teachers have figured out the basics of going virtual due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the intention of archiving is not survival. Creating an archive allows you to teach to the future, not just to the present. For example, I was able to provide prerecorded lessons for my students when two major back-to-back family emergencies forced me to miss the last ten days of the term. In addition, my colleagues did not need to scramble to create lessons for my classes.

This book advocates for why it is in your best interest and in your students’ best interests to create a video archive. I am certainly not the first person to emphasize the why as the most essential point of a new idea. In fact, inspirational speaker Simon Sinek (2009) states, “People don’t buy what you do; they buy why you do it. And what you do simply proves what you believe” (p. 41). My why is simple: creating a video archive will improve both teaching and learning.

While I will guide you through the logistics, this book is not a complicated how-to because there are a lot of platforms, and they are ever-changing. Such instructions could be out of date very soon. You don’t need extensive technology skills to implement this strategy. Searching the internet for platform-specific steps should provide the details you need in the latest iteration of the technology. For example, when I started archiving, Zoom was not common in school. I did not have a camera set up in my classroom to automatically connect to the desktop and stream live lessons. Someday these devices may also be outdated, but I will adapt and use the newest technology as it evolves.

You are already teaching. Why not make the most of it? This approach breaks down physical barriers to facilitate real accessibility for students who