joanne2212 Posted April 12, 2012 Share Posted April 12, 2012 Hi I am new to all of this so please bear with me! Having spent the last week or so trying to digest the new EYFS framework and development matters material,I was just wondering if any one uses camcorders to observe the children in thier setting and if they found this more helpful than written obs. Thanks to anyone who can offer any advise on this matter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sunnyday Posted April 12, 2012 Share Posted April 12, 2012 Hi and welcome to the forum! :1b In answer to your question, no, not something I have ever done.....not sure how that would/could replace written obs........will be interesting to see what others have to say :1b Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
catma Posted April 12, 2012 Share Posted April 12, 2012 Many schools I work with use flip cameras or video, especially if they have an electronic tracking system which stores those as evidence. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sunnyday Posted April 12, 2012 Share Posted April 12, 2012 Many schools I work with use flip cameras or video, especially if they have an electronic tracking system which stores those as evidence. Well I stand corrected! :1b Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SueJ Posted April 12, 2012 Share Posted April 12, 2012 Hi - we use a camcorder to observe the children and find video obs to be really useful. Once recorded we are then able to write up our observations away from the distractions of actually working with the children and have found that we are able to note so much more than when we are writing our observations as we observe the children - this is especially true for noting language and communication and quite often we will see things that we missed in written obs because we were looking at our notepads at the time. The ability to play and replay is also useful as you can really get the whole picture of what is happening. The downside is that sometimes the children will spot what you are up to and "play to the camera" but they usually get used to it pretty quickly and obs are undertaken in an unobtrusive manner. Some things to think about - we now start our observations by noting the name of the child that we are observing and the date - when you have 50 to do it makes it easier for each keyperson to find their specific observations. It is also a bit of an exercise to make sure that the observations are loaded up onto laptops for the keyperson to then use but no worse than loading up all the photos too! If you are reasonably computer literate it is simple to run the video and word processing programmes simultaneously and then just pause the video to nip into the word processed document to type up what you have just seen/heard. We have now also moved on and do video peeer on peer observations - after all if it is ok for the children to be observed this way then the same goes for setting practitioners and it has actually again been useful as a means of really getting meaningful discussions about practice going - after all the camera never lies! As a rule once the video obs have been typed up they are then deleted (this way we make sure that no parents get footage of children that perhaps cannot have visual images of them shared) but occasionally it has been useful to use the Penn Green PICL (Parents Involved in Children's Learning) techniques to share observations with parents to highlight things about their children's learning and development and/or behaviour. Hope that helps Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fredbear Posted April 12, 2012 Share Posted April 12, 2012 Hi and welcome :1b I have used them for my Eklan training and presently part of a training project with Pen Green [PICL] parents engaged in children's learning. The idea is to film/observe a child in the setting, to then share with their parents to support the child's learning patterns, interests etc. Once you get over the initial embarassment of seeing and listening to yourself, i have found them to be an invaluable tool for reflecting on ones own practice and deep involvement play. We have also discussed using them for continuous professional development within our setting but not as a critical element. However we do not presently use them for observing children persay and i am not sure these would have a major place in our setting. Hope this makes sense. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted April 16, 2012 Share Posted April 16, 2012 (edited) This is interesting stuff. I was wondering if there is any software out there for creating a sort of Learning Journey Blog that could be shared with parents by email or restricted access. Our big problem is our reliance on photos in our Learning Journeys, and the associated printing costs, but if we could do it all online we could include as much photographic and also video footage as we liked. Surely this must be the next step if it doesn't already exist? Edited April 16, 2012 by Guest Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted April 16, 2012 Share Posted April 16, 2012 There are definitely a number of companies offering a Learning Journey Blog type service. We used one for a while and we really liked it, but the cost was prohibitive for a setting as small as ours. If you have technical know how and are confident blogging you could easily set one up yourself for very little cost. What I particularly liked was the option to not have to print everything but for it to be kept well filed (electronically) and for parents to be able to access their child's journey from their home or work which meant we could involve fathers too much more. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bigsue Posted April 16, 2012 Share Posted April 16, 2012 'Ive just use camcoder to do peer obs its worked really well and no one can dispute it as its there as real evidence a' moving pic'. We also had a luagh at each other Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tricias Posted April 16, 2012 Share Posted April 16, 2012 There's Michelle Hill and her staff at Leamore Primary school who won this years Naace ICT impact award for "Live blogging of children's individual learning journeys, by EYFS staff, at Leamore Primary School" Their video entry for the award is here http://www.naace.co.uk/events/conference2012/naaceimpactawards2012/winners. You should be able to access it without being logged in. Let me know if not. The school's blogs are at http://leamoreblogs.net/ and Michelle tweets as @Michelle_Hill Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted April 17, 2012 Share Posted April 17, 2012 Thanks Tricias, I couldn't get there by the links as it wanted me to log, but I did a search and found it anyway. Some interesting stuff, will have to give it some serious thought, just worry about security as it's pretty confidential stuff. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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