After my first son was born, for a variety of reasons, I took a job at night. One of the benefits of this was that we could keep our son out of daycare and at home with his parents. When he was under a year old, this seemed like a good idea. I slept when he slept (which was a good part of the day.) However, as he got older and needed fewer naps, the struggle for me to find time to rest was just that... a struggle!
It wasn't long before I started making little home movies for him to watch. They were simple affairs, really. 45 seconds of his mommy singing a song to him, 30 seconds of me singing the alphabet song, a few clips of his grandmother talking to him... these were all low effort productions, but he loved them. When I realized just how entranced he was with watching us on TV, I started making longer and longer videos. I'd put him in the very kid friendly living room, turn on one of his videos, and I'd cat-nap for 30 minutes. It worked out great!
Well, when trying to decide what to put into those videos, I naturally added a few educational bits here and there. There was a clip of us holding up various items and announcing their color, us counting, and other simple little things. We had no idea how well this would work out, but knew it couldn't really hurt anything.
Well, to my surprise, by the time he was 18 months old, he was singing the ABCs and KNEW them by sight! My mother in law still brags on him by telling people of how he'd read off the numbers and letters on her car's license plate. That's what got me so interested in using videos to teach. The interesting thing was that I could be standing right next to the TV doing the EXACT same thing I was doing on the video, but he'd rather watch me ON THE TELEVISION than he would in person! Baffling!
He's five, now, and nothing has changed. No matter how boring I think a video is that I've made, he'll watch it through multiple times. If it's a "good" video, they can't be watched enough!
So, my attempts to find a way to take a nap turned into one of the things my mother in law brags about!
I've attempted to talk friends and family into making their own home videos, but I suppose you have to be interested in that sort of thing in the first place for that to sound appealing. This is a big part of why I've made the educational videos that I have... so I can share them with others. I've simply re-made the ones I made for my son without my wife and I in them. Our not being in them doesn't seem to take much away in their appeal, so hopefully, they'll be appealing for your kids, too.
But... But... they're BORING!
Yes, they are. I noticed that the more things I added to a video to make them interesting, the less effective they were at actually teaching. Don't get me wrong, I still make videos that have lots of entertainment value, but the more basic and simple they are, the better. So, while I do have videos with music, graphics and people, I'm focusing on videos with as few distractions as possible. For example, studies have shown that the simple presence of a face is highly distracting to a viewer. So, if I were in one of the Sight Words videos, instead of focusing 100% on the printed word, their attention would be drawn to my face for part of the video. That's counterproductive... not to mention the fact that my face isn't much to look at in the first place!
So, forgive me... my videos are boring to you! But, I'd be willing to wager that if your learner is part of the target audience, and you turn the TV and radio off, they'll be more than interested in what's going on on the screen... particularly if you participate.
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