A Dozen Video Resources for Your Classroom
Ever used video clips to reinforce the material you are teaching? Visual aids are wonderful resources that are vastly underused! Sometimes specific topics are hard to find. Other times, videos exist, but they are too expensive. So what can you do?
Check out the internet. There are a plethora of resources available; you just have to know where to look. To help, we have included 12 surefire links to some sites where you can find video clips for a number of different subjects and topics. Enjoy!
- www.teachersdomain.org Provides access to Science & Social Studies video resources. Teachers' Domain is an online educational service offering multimedia resources appropriate for K-12 curriculum, for use in lessons or independent study. Downloadable files. Gratis.
- www.teachertube.com is a site that provides free streaming videos for teachers made by teachers. Many topics are covered. Quality varies. At present, videos cannot be downloaded onto a hard drive unless you have a way to 'capture flash'. If you find a good way to do that, please let me know! Streaming Video. Gratis.
- http://www.mylearningtube.com/ a source of streaming video that has been uploaded by users. Has many of the grammar rock and mulitiplication rock videos as well as other well done content. Appears to be a relatively new site. Streaming Video. Gratis
- http://video.google.com/ Google's video search engine. As with most search engines, you may get videos you can't use or that may not be appropriate content. However, you do pull up many videos that you can use. It draws from other sites like YouTube, MySpace, etc. Streaming Video. Gratis
- http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/index.html. Videos come up in a pop up on this site so turn off your popup blocker. As one would expect from National Geographic, these are high quality videos. Streaming Video. Gratis.
- http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/programs/ These are NOVA programs are available to watch online, divided conveniently into chapters and closed captioned for deaf and hard-of-hearing viewers. Again, true to Nova's reputation, these are high quality videos. Streaming Video. Gratis.
- http://www.schooltube.com/ SchoolTube provides students and educators a safe, world class, and FREE media sharing website that is nationally endorsed by premier education associations. SchoolTube is the recognized leader for moderated internet media content sharing for teachers and students. Streaming Video. Gratis.
- http://video.yahoo.com/ Another video search engine. It finds different videos than Google so it's a good idea to use both. I typed in Osmosis and got some excellent video options (as well as some I couldn't use. Type in your topic and see what is available. You might find some great resource videos for your classroom! Gratis
- http://www.thefutureschannel.com/index.php The Futures Channel produces and distributes high quality multimedia content which educators in any setting can use to enliven curriculum, engage students and otherwise enhance the learning experience. There are supplemental activities available to go with the videos when purchasing a subscription. Streaming Video. Gratis & Subscription.
- www.brainpop.com is a subscription service that uses the latest brain research to provide video clips to reinforce and explain concepts. An adolescent friendly cartoon format that provides video clips to address the core academic topics. This site also provides practice games and study tools. Streaming Video Subscription
- www.unitedstreaming.com is a subscription service that compiles some of the best academic video clips on their site. They have video clips of their own as well as videos from well known providers like Standard Deviants. United Streaming has over 40, 000 clips that cover just about everything taught in elementary and secondary school. They align their clips to state standards. Downloadable files. Subscription.
- http://www.cosmeo.com/explorecosmeo.cfm/ Cosmeo is the online homework help tool for report research, learning games, and more. Powered by Discovery Channel, Cosmeo is based on the most widely used educational video streaming service in U.S. schools. Subscription.
Here's a way to capture streaming video and audio:
http://www.applian.com/ - I understand that people who stream video may not want others to download that video on their hard drive. However, if the goal of the websites producers above is to support teachers, they need to realize that most teachers have inadequate server support, computer hardware equipment and all kinds of spam filters that make streaming video frustrating at best if not impossible. Consequently, I believe that if a teacher can find a way to use the resources in their classrooms with technology readily available to them, then they should go for it. There are many programs out there that capture streaming audio and video and some are free. The Applian Technologies solutions received the highest ratings of the software I was able to find.
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About the Author
Susan Fitzell is a nationally recognized speaker and author of several educational resource books. She has over two decades of experience with differentiated instruction, teaching youth with special needs, students with behavioral and anger management issues, and students who experience bullying. Susan’s company, AIMHI Educational Programs, focuses on building caring school communities. http://aimhieducational.com/