Читать книгу Awesome Sauce - Josh Stock - Страница 9

You will fail.

For a book aimed at inspiring you, that is the worst opening line ever.

But failure is something you will run into. Making videos for your classroom is hard … as hard as trying to figure out the inner workings of a copier to unjam it! You set out to create the most amazing video, something Oscar-worthy or with an “O Captain! My Captain!” level of inspiration and awesomeness.

Then you run into an obstacle and you give up.

Even worse, you get so terrified about the possibility of messing up that you never even start. “It won’t work.” “Something will go wrong.” You listen to the voices and don’t create anything.

You will fail.

At some point in your video creation you will have issues. It won’t be perfect. Things won’t go exactly as planned. Your video will disappear, you’ll stutter or mispronounce a word, or the school bell will interrupt an otherwise flawless recording.

Video creation is messy. Embrace it. Own it. I spent years talking myself out of some awesome ideas because I was afraid they wouldn’t work. I would have an epiphany while on a walk or doing the dishes or taking a shower. Then I would sit down to plan out the next steps to make the creation a reality, and the doubt would creep in.

My biggest failure wasn’t creating a messed-up video. It was being afraid to create anything in the first place.

Years ago, I created my very first video for my students. I spent hours meticulously recording and rerecording every second of footage for a short three-minute video. I thought the end result was great—until I showed it to students. As I watched it, I noticed a couple of “ummms” and a mistimed transition. All that work and there were still things that weren’t perfect. That’s when I decided not to worry so much.

Students love the mistakes. They love to see that you are human and struggle through things just like they do. I never knew the power of this connection until the time I received my first AirDropped image … of my face. I had sent out the daily announcement video on Google Classroom for students to watch before tackling the day’s assignment. Ten minutes into the activity, a student AirDropped a screenshot from the video. In it, I was making the goofiest, weirdest face imaginable. Keep in mind that this was completely unintentional (sometimes I do goofy faces on purpose). It was hilarious, so I included it on my daily agenda the next day. For the next two weeks I had students poring through my videos trying to capture the goofiest Mr. Stock face.

In moments like this, you have two options. You can get frustrated and embarrassed that you sometimes look goofy when you make videos, or you can own it and use it to your advantage. The students didn’t realize that while they were trying to find the screenshot gems in my videos, they were actually watching and rewatching my videos, engaged in learning the material.

You will fail. But you will bounce back from it. Continue moving forward and you will create something epic. You will create the Awesome Sauce—an epic video that keeps your students engaging with and mastering the content.