About those videos

The McGraw team has put a couple sets of videos online. Some of these were taken in a studio, using a script I had written in which I talk about Writing Matters. Some were taken during a keynote speech I made at Bridgewater State College for the Massachusetts CONNECT conference last spring; those are on the video link on this blog.

It was a neat experience, doing the studio shoot. Made me feel like a movie star for a day; it was just fun. Seeing the film online is another matter: I’m just not used to watching film of me. So I watched it all through, each segment of each set; took a deep breath; and said, “Well, that’s done.”

But today a friend called to say that colleagues in her program are using the Bridgewater film in class, to help explain to their students what patchwriting is and why they’re asking their students to write summaries of sources. That shifts my attention from thinking how peculiar it is to see video of oneself online, to thinking about how many good pedagogical uses can be made of such video.

So not only is Writing Matters out, ready to be distributed as desk copies and ready to be used in the classroom, but so are those videos. And after my friend’s call today, I’m feeling not just the odd sensation of seeing myself on film, but the happy notion that not only Writing Matters but the video are doing good pedagogical work.

And that’s what it’s all about. I expected to have Writing Matters do good work; the videos are a bonus, the handiwork of the great team at McGraw, some of whose pictures are in the Gallery on this blog. Thanks, y’all.