Talking about teaching using Snapchat Spectacles

Last week I asked one of my lovely teacher education students if I could record snippets of our conversation, following her final observation using the Snapchat Spectacles. Being an Ed Tech enthusiast she readily agreed. This little experiment gave me so much useful data to reflect on. In practical terms, I had to wear my contact lenses as my glasses frames are quite big and the Spectacles just don't sit well on top of them. I have to admit to feeling a bit silly too about wearing 'sunglasses' indoors. We are waiting for some clear lenses to come which will make a difference, but in the meantime I'll have to stick to the tinted lenses and feeling a bit silly. Apart from that, I had quite a shock when I reviewed the footage, which you could hardly describe as 'steady'. I didn't realise that I had a tendency to move my head quite so much when talking to people... On the plus side, I guess it shows I am actively listening (the nodding was the worst) but it doesn't make for good viewing! In hindsight and chatting about this to my colleagues, I absolutely DON'T want to change my behaviour to try and keep my head straight for the video. It would change the experience for me and my student and would defeat the object of what we are trying to do, which is to get authentic evidence for assessment purposes. If I change my behaviour, then I have to expect my students to do the same.

As for my student's perspective, on the whole she said she felt comfortable talking to me looking like a Miami Vice reject (apologies for the retro reference) about her lesson, even though she couldn't see my eyes. She knows me quite well now, which clearly helped, but she did say clear lenses would be preferable. She also thought it would have been beneficial to record for longer periods of time as the maximum we can record for is 60 seconds at a time. And there was no doubt she was conscious of the camera, as she stopped herself from saying something and pointed to glasses showing they were recording! I think this is quite natural as it was the first time we had used the glasses - if it was something we did regularly then I think that might change.

I was keen to chat to my Teacher Ed colleagues, Naomi, Lorraine and Colette about this experience as they are always able to help me look at things from different perspectives, so we had an informal meeting where I asked their thoughts on the glasses. Lorraine, who is a counselling teacher, completely understood why the listener isn't always the best person to use the glasses, due to all the non-verbal communication - in my case the incessant nodding! However, she thought it could be good from a third person perspective. Lorraine was the first person to point out that she would feel really uncomfortable talking to me about a lesson when she couldn't see my eyes. Especially when there is so much at stake, like a final observation on a teacher education programme. A very valid point of course. Colette, one of my other colleagues, in Teacher Education suggested that a better use of the glasses might be during an actual observation, when we see something really good happening. Or we could even get the students to use them during a micro-teach for example, to get their perspectives. Stephen Brookfield would be really happy about this I suspect! I love these suggestions and this has definitely given me some food for thought for next year where I'll be using the glasses in my sessions from the start, so learners get used to being recorded. I'm hoping we'll get some insightful, thought provoking footage to reflect on.