TED Education Video Site

 As many of you know, I LOVE TED.com videos. Now, TED has and educational video site where teachers can share their lessons and get them animated. The site is still fairly new and is still growing, but there are now enough videos on the site to really keep you busy this summer. You might find some good videos for your own class. And as always, the videos are short enough to use in class and keep your students interested. Start searching them today!

TED-Ed Lessons click here!

Slow Motion Youtube Videos

Thank you to Richard Byrne of Free Technology for Teachers for alerting me to the idea of slow motion videos on Youtube. As a former science teacher, how awesome is it to be able to film some of your science experiments on the weekend or even in class and then upload them to Youtube AND put them in slow motion so you can explain what is going on and students can see what is going on!! Lots of applications for coaches, but I think teachers could really use this slow motion option too, especially science teachers. Very cool!

Here is Richard Byrne's blog post about this slow motion option.

Common Craft Video: Electoral College

If you are teaching anything about the election in the next week or two, you might consider using this quick Common Craft video about the Electoral College. I love Common Craft videos and have used them in my class when it comes to Biztown as they have some great ones on money, finance, the economy. This one is specifically about the Electoral College and how it determines our presidential election outcome. Hopefully you can find 4-5 minutes in the next 2 weeks to show this video if you are talking and teaching about the election.

Common Craft: Electoral College click here!

Crash Course History: Good Supplemental History Lesson Site

Crash Course History isn't going to teach students everything they need to know about a certain topic from history, but it is a good site to reference to students so they can learn about a topic in a different way or extend their learning beyond class. Might also be a good short video to supplement a class lesson. The videos are engaging with a lot going on with lots of extra information. And more and more are being added all the time, so you can keep checking back to see if they have added a topic that you are currently teaching about. I think the best use for this site would be for students to watch and use these videos on their own time in order to add to their classroom learning.

Click here to see all of the videos offered by Crash Course History

TED Videos Starring Inspiring Teachers

If you need to start getting yourself psyched up and pumped up before the school year begins, inspiring TED videos by teachers might do the trick. I have viewed a few of these in the past, but hope to view all 10 before school starts (many TED videos are on Netflix now too!). Great ideas and some pretty powerful and interesting thoughts. Enjoy!

10 Inspiring TED videos by teachers (if you have never watched TED videos, you should. They are purposely very short, 20 minutes or less, and engaging!)

ShowMe and Educreations: IPad Lesson Creation Tools

I have been using Educreations just for fun for some time now and I know of a few schools and educators who use Educreations for their students and parents. I just learned about ShowMe as an alternative to Educreations. I think both are pretty cool sites with tons of use and possibilities for educators. If you have an IPad (you don't necessarily need one), you can create quick visual lessons and post them to the site, email them, or provide a link for others to click on and then they can view your lessons. So, you could show how to do a few different math problems and explain it out loud while you draw on the "board" and record the whole process. Then, students and families could view your lesson over and over at home, especially while they are doing their nightly homework. So, the lessons you do during the day can now be viewed at home. And students would not need an IPad to view, just access to the Internet. Selfishly, I also love having my own kids draw and talk while they draw and then email them to other family members. But you could have your own students do problems or homework as a "lesson" and you could hear what they are thinking. They could even record their own lessons for other students and become the teacher. Lots of uses. And lots of fun!

ShowMe website click here!

Educreations site click here!

ShowMe Story Video:

Youtube for Educators Now Live!

Just a quick update to let you know that Youtube has created a special website for educators and this website hosts thousands of videos safe for schools and accessible to all computers as the web address is not a ".com" but a ".edu", so it won't be blocked on any computers, even student computers. So if you have a video you normally show through Youtube, you might want to visit the Educator's Youtube first to see if it is there so students can access it and you know the video and information surrounding the video is safe and appropriate. Enjoy!

Of note, you may have to use your google account to get to this site and use this site, so I am not sure how easy it will be for all students to access it. In our district, since Youtube is note blocked, students could likely still get to a video through Youtube, but if you are showing a video in class or searching for a good video, you might want to use the Youtube for Educators site. Here is a link to a blogpost explaning all of this...click here!

Iowa "Did You Know" Version: Learn about Today's Student and Iowa's Student

Thank you to Scott McLeod and a few others for the creation of a special version of "Did You Know" video series, this one focusing on Iowa's schools, students, and educational system. If you have never seen any of the "Did You Know" videos, you are missing out. But I especially like this one since it becomes Iowa-specific in the 2nd half of the video. Some pretty interesting stats and figures in this video and it should make all of my colleagues in education think and hopefully start talking about the future of education in Iowa. I know it got me thinking....

Click here: "Iowa, Did You Know" video

TED Talk on Listening

I could watch TED talks everyday and probably should start and end my day with a TED talk until I have seen all of the best ones. They are all very short, by design, and very much to the point. And the points are usually very important. Here is a super short one by Julian Treasure about what it takes to be a good listener. I was hoping it would be one I could show to students, but I don't know if they would stick with it even though it is less than 8 minutes. However, the lessons he gives are good lessons for educators and ones that we could pass along to our students in our own way. Spend 8 minutes of your day this week and click on the link and give it a watch.

Click here: Julian Treasure on Listening

Help Students Learn about our Changing Economy

Thanks to Richard Byrne and his Free Technology for Teachers blog, here are some videos that help students understand the economy and the craziness much better than maybe watching the nightly news. I love the Common Craft video series, especially when they are about how to use technology, and have even shown 1 or 2 of the economy videos in my 6th grade Biztown curriculum. It really makes a difficult topic pretty simple. I have not viewed all of the videos that this post links to, but know some of them are very good. Give them a look and see if they can help you in your class.

11 Videos for Economics

TED Talks....Can You use Them in Class?

TED Talks are something I am just learning about and starting to listen to. I just posted one by Daniel Pink. It got me thinking...are there others that teachers could use or students could listen too? Then, I came across a blog by Larry Ferlazzo with some TED Talk tools. I have listed some of these below along with a brief description of what each site does for the TED Talks.

(By the way....here is what TED Talks are: “TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from those three worlds. Since then its scope has become ever broader.

The annual conference now brings together the world’s most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives (in 18 minutes).

This site makes the best talks and performances from TED and partners available to the world, for free. More than 400 TEDTalks are now available, with more added each week. All of the talks feature closed captions in English, and many feature subtitles in various languages. These videos are released under a Creative Commons license, so they can be freely shared and reposted.”)

http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/2009/12/23/the-best-ted-talks-well-really-the-ones-i-use-with-my-classes/ Ferlazzo's best TED Talks for schools/students/teachers

http://www.historyteachersattic.com/2009/06/ted-talks-demystified-for-teachers/ This site categorizes all of the TED talks into categories. Makes it easy to see which ones might work for your class. Love this site!

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pjGlYH-8AK8ffDa6o2bYlXg List of all TED talks with title, brief summary and who is giving the talk.

And for teachers, administrators, etc.... http://dangerouslyirrelevant.org/2009/05/top20tedtalks.html

This link is a link to the top 20 TED Talks for busy administrators. But I think teachers can be just as busy and be interested in this stuff too, so I post it for all. Enjoy!

Daniel Pink on Motivation (Video)

Came across this in several areas and thought...why not post it. A little less than 20 minutes, but good video from author Daniel Pink (author of Drive...a book apparently educators are supposed to read!). In this TED talk, he talks about motivation and how it works....and doesn't work. Touches on rewards, etc. He talks about businesses and jobs for the most part, but it works for education too.

http://video.ted.com/talks/podcast/DanielPink_2009G.mp4