One of my favorite things I do with my students is have them participate in a private Google Plus Community. The capturing of the informal learning is invaluable. This is where students “lean over” and ask their neighbor “Did you understand what the directions were?” or “I found this great resource that reminded me of what we talked about in class yesterday.”  or “I made on tutorial on how to ____ and I thought it might be helpful to everyone.”

While there are so many things I love about the Google Plus platform, one cool feature is the ability to insert a video capture directly into the community.

Go to Google Plus

Go to the community you created for your classroom and find the “Share what’s new…” box at the top of the posts. Click on the video icon.

Choose Record Video Tab

After pressing the video icon notice there are 4 options along the top. The first option allows you to search YouTube for videos. The 2nd option allows you to paste a URL from YouTube. This is what I use most often. The 3rd option looks in your YouTube account manager and lets you pick videos directly from there. The 4th option is to “Record video” directly into Google Plus.

After giving permissions for the camera, press the record button and record a short message to your student. The video does not upload to YouTube so it processes fairly quickly.

Students can also record a video message, this is a great way to hear from students and for you to share back with them.