I was reading Facebook the other day, when I noticed a posting from one of my former teaching colleagues, a creative, dynamic, and energetic young United States History teacher. She’s the kind of teacher the students adore and she goes beyond the “normal” methods of teaching and really makes the lessons hands-on by doing things like converting her room into trenches for her World War I lessons. Anyway, on Facebook she was excited because she found this video about the US Civil War on Youtube:
However, she was up against the district’s firewall:
“…we need to figure out how to get around the firewalls at school to show youtube. this is a great example of things it'd be nice to show the kids!!!”
Fortunately one of her Facebook friends told her he’d show her how to convert the Youtube file so she wouldn’t need to use the internet at all while sharing the video with her class.
So… how has the explosion of web based video changed the teaching and learning landscape?
Well…not so much if you can’t or don’t know how to use the resources!
Fortunately, ISB doesn’t restrain teachers with firewalls and happily they provide teacher training opportunities as well as superb technical support. A few times a week, I am busy converting video files to use in the classroom. I prefer converting them because I don’t have to worry about no-or slow Internet. I use web based video to enhance my lessons. For example, when some students seemed to miss the concept of “materialism” I showed a few minutes of Madonna’s “Material Girl” video to clarify the meaning. In health class, I frequently show anti-bullying, drinking or smoking PSA’s to begin a discussion. I also show alcohol and old tobacco commercials to discuss how the media influences smoking and drinking. Finding the clips is fun but can be time consuming and you need to be careful that you are showing “accurate” content.
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