A quick guide to mindful scrolling

Your video feed is a powerful teaching resource – here's how to get more out of it

Have you seen the video of the shy young golfer? He’s only about 6 years old, he's wearing an oversized cap and sunglasses, and he’s being interviewed.

The interviewer asks him, ‘If you could be really good at just one part of golf, what would it be?

The little boy replies, ’It would be awesome!'

It took me a few moments to appreciate this cute misunderstanding, which all centres around that tiny word: it.

• For the interviewer, it = a specific part of the golf game (yet to be named).
• For the child, it = the whole scenario described in the question – being really good at one part of golf.

As an English teacher, I am always drawn to stories of misunderstandings and in my mind, this one is perfect for the classroom.

Like many of the videos I use in my teaching and training these days, I found this one on Instagram. But it could also have been TikTok or YouTube.

Personally, I am not a big fan of these apps or the people behind them. They pull us in, they drain our time and make us feel guilty for not doing something more productive instead.

There is also a huge amount of highly problematic content including loathsome propaganda, scammers, AI slop and videos that negatively affect young people's self esteem.

But it's not all doom – within all the chaff, there is also gold in the form of human stories worth appreciating.

Finding story-worthy videos

I am writing this post following a question that came up on my Video & Story course. Heather asked:

Do you have any tips for finding good video clips to use in class?

I have been asked this question many times before and I like to compare it to the more generic one: Where do you find your stories?

Both of these questions make the same assumption: if you find the video or live the experience, you will recognise its story-worthy teaching potential.

But this is not true. It is one thing to come across a great video. It is another thing to recognise its value.

Fortunately, this is not difficult to do. All it takes is a bit of awareness.

Six tips for mindful scrolling

One. Set a limit to the amount of scrolling you do each day – 20 or 30 minutes for example.

Two. While you are scrolling, don’t feel bad about it. Look past the doom and look for the fun, beauty and humanity.

Three. Try not to scroll on autopilot but think about what you see.

Four. For each video that catches your eye, watch it two or three times and ask yourself three questions:

• Is this video meaningful to me?
• If so, why? What is my connection to it? What do I like about it?
• Could I imagine telling a friend about it in conversation?

Five. If the answer to all three of the above questions is yes, save the video.

Six. Every now and again, rather than scrolling through your live feed, scroll through your saved videos. This will allow you to connect with all those worthy clips you may have forgotten.

Video & Story

By engaging with videos in this way, you may find yourself referring to them in conversation. In this case, leave your phone in your pocket and tell the story in the good, old-fashioned way.

If you 'tell' your video well, people will want to see it for themselves. If you told it very well, they will be disappointed when they do!

The everyday activity of putting video into words is what I refer to as 'Videotelling'. In the classroom, Videotelling is a great way to develop students' storytelling skills and confidence.

If you would like to find out how, please join my mini course. 👉 Video & Story takes less than 60 minutes to work through and you can start right now.

 Thank you for reading 🤗

Jamie