Padlet #2 Post: Time-lapse Videos of Student Labs

This is second of a three-part blog post series on the use of Padlet during distance learning. Today's post is short, but discusses something I have found to be VERY useful when facilitating distance learning "labs" with my chemistry students: Time-lapse videos! 

I have been struggling with capturing student work from a distance when it involves simple labs I have students do at home. To increase student accountability, and to create a powerful visual of their observations, I am having students record time-lapse videos of their experiments so that we can all quickly review and discuss their observations via a common Padlet board without having to deal with sharing Zoom screens, digging through an ugly form output sheet, or opening up myriad of various websites or folders wheres students catalog their work. 

Click here for an example of a Padlet board where students uploaded time-lapse videos of an experiment where students were challenged to determine the general effect of adding sodium chloride to water. As you can see, not only is the board a very aesthetic and clear place to view one another's work, the commenting feature allows for collaboration without having to awkwardly talk in Zoom constantly. Moreover, and perhaps most powerful, because a time-lapse video is a condenses video created from image snapshots in time, the video file is small, and thus can easily be uploaded to the common Padlet board were I, and all students, can see the ENTIRE lab process unfold for complete analysis and observation. Simple and powerful. At least in my eyes :)