I have to admit right up front that I already use and love two of this week’s resources – Khan Academy and TED talks….wow – I could get lost in both and not come out for weeks! Though I haven’t used TEDed in the classroom my class has watched numerous TED talks and, as I was mentioning in response to Andrew’s blog this week, I have been toying with the idea of setting aside time each week to watch a TED talk and discuss it with my class. There are a number of kids that have been invited to talk at various TED conferences and I view that as a motivating factor to show my students ‘look, you do actually have a voice in this world – now what do you have to say?’ I’m a little bit hesitant to employ this as it means I will have to pre-watch a number of videos, but I think the value is definitely there and I will have to block off some time to do this with my class…hmm, an extension would be that we could blog about it afterwards….okay, slow down! Now I’m convinced what a great idea this is.
A couple of problems that I have found with the TED Ed talks is that most seem to be at a higher level or on topics beyond the grade level that I teach (sometimes I wish I taught middle school….but that usually only lasts a few minutes then I remember how much I love where I am). Secondly I’ve found that my students generally are good up to about the five minute mark and then a few drop off before a real crash at about eight minutes. Most TED talks are about twenty minutes and kids struggle to remember points that they’d like to comment on by that point. To make it easier for them I take notes on the board while we are watching the talk and we come back and talk about them afterwards. That being said, there is a huge library of valuable videos to be found, here. And the added resource of questions tied to the video give an excellent jumping off point for class discussions and can lead students on tangents that they’d like to explore further. The videos are typically interesting and engaging and I can foresee having students complete research on a topic that interests them and then share their learning through a jigsaw like activity. As a face to face teacher taking the OLTD courses, I’m all about relevance and finding tools and programs that I can use in the classroom and I’ve found that TED Ed is a perfect example of this.
Another great site that I have used in my classroom in the past is Khan Academy. Again, there are a lot of higher level math (and science and….) concept videos on this site, but there are also some great videos that apply directly to concepts we cover in my class (grade 5/6 level). I enjoy watching the videos and appreciate Sal Khan’s humour and the general ease of his presentation style. I sometimes use them in my classroom as an alternate to listening to me drone on about a concept – my students can, instead or in addition, watch a video on the concept to learn how to do it. They really seem to love to learn using technology and this is one way I’ve tried to incorporate that into our classroom. Plus, it’s a great resource when the kids get home and forget the order of operations or how to find a common denominator – they can go on the website and figure it out.
I’ve spent a small (teensy) amount of time on the OER Commons site. At first glance I was impressed at the wide variety of subjects and topics that you can find lessons on. I only clicked on a few links but I found lessons that included video clips, pictures, printable worksheets and detailed lesson plans for use. What I love is the symbols on the side that tell you exactly where you stand in terms of copying and sharing the resources (for instance ‘remix and reuse’ ?>???or ‘no strings attached’). Definitely a resource I’ll have to spend more time researching. The days of having no access to resources is long gone, folks – information is accessible and available in many places!
So here is another thought – could we consider YouTube to be an OER? If the definition according to Wikipedia is that OER’s “are freely accessible, usually openly licensed documents and media that are useful for teaching, learning, educational, assessment and research purposes”. Educational might be a bit of a stretch, but to be honest I have found some good videos and resources on youtube.com. Search electrical circuits and you will find engaging videos that explain how circuits work. Search government and you will find catchy, kid-focused spots that will make a lesson on the levels of government more interesting than I could. And, arguably it’s probably one of the most popular sites that my students to find information on. Can’t pass the latest level on your video game? Yeah, they’ve got a video for that, too. I use it as a teaching tool in my classroom and it could very easily be used to research topics or learn new concepts (remember the video we watched early on in OLTD from the boy with the bow-string problem). So I guess that leaves assessment. How could we use youtube as an assessment platform? Well, we could use it as a repository for student videos – that we could then assess. True there is no formal question bank available to assess understanding of the videos but that is not the only form of assessment. And the comment threads could be used to encourage deeper level thinking, comprehension, analysis, discussion…..eliciting comments and input from students on the video they’ve just watched. Food for thought…..
Regardless of the resource –OERs are definitely making my job easier and allowing me and my students access to information like never before.
A couple of problems that I have found with the TED Ed talks is that most seem to be at a higher level or on topics beyond the grade level that I teach (sometimes I wish I taught middle school….but that usually only lasts a few minutes then I remember how much I love where I am). Secondly I’ve found that my students generally are good up to about the five minute mark and then a few drop off before a real crash at about eight minutes. Most TED talks are about twenty minutes and kids struggle to remember points that they’d like to comment on by that point. To make it easier for them I take notes on the board while we are watching the talk and we come back and talk about them afterwards. That being said, there is a huge library of valuable videos to be found, here. And the added resource of questions tied to the video give an excellent jumping off point for class discussions and can lead students on tangents that they’d like to explore further. The videos are typically interesting and engaging and I can foresee having students complete research on a topic that interests them and then share their learning through a jigsaw like activity. As a face to face teacher taking the OLTD courses, I’m all about relevance and finding tools and programs that I can use in the classroom and I’ve found that TED Ed is a perfect example of this.
Another great site that I have used in my classroom in the past is Khan Academy. Again, there are a lot of higher level math (and science and….) concept videos on this site, but there are also some great videos that apply directly to concepts we cover in my class (grade 5/6 level). I enjoy watching the videos and appreciate Sal Khan’s humour and the general ease of his presentation style. I sometimes use them in my classroom as an alternate to listening to me drone on about a concept – my students can, instead or in addition, watch a video on the concept to learn how to do it. They really seem to love to learn using technology and this is one way I’ve tried to incorporate that into our classroom. Plus, it’s a great resource when the kids get home and forget the order of operations or how to find a common denominator – they can go on the website and figure it out.
I’ve spent a small (teensy) amount of time on the OER Commons site. At first glance I was impressed at the wide variety of subjects and topics that you can find lessons on. I only clicked on a few links but I found lessons that included video clips, pictures, printable worksheets and detailed lesson plans for use. What I love is the symbols on the side that tell you exactly where you stand in terms of copying and sharing the resources (for instance ‘remix and reuse’ ?>???or ‘no strings attached’). Definitely a resource I’ll have to spend more time researching. The days of having no access to resources is long gone, folks – information is accessible and available in many places!
So here is another thought – could we consider YouTube to be an OER? If the definition according to Wikipedia is that OER’s “are freely accessible, usually openly licensed documents and media that are useful for teaching, learning, educational, assessment and research purposes”. Educational might be a bit of a stretch, but to be honest I have found some good videos and resources on youtube.com. Search electrical circuits and you will find engaging videos that explain how circuits work. Search government and you will find catchy, kid-focused spots that will make a lesson on the levels of government more interesting than I could. And, arguably it’s probably one of the most popular sites that my students to find information on. Can’t pass the latest level on your video game? Yeah, they’ve got a video for that, too. I use it as a teaching tool in my classroom and it could very easily be used to research topics or learn new concepts (remember the video we watched early on in OLTD from the boy with the bow-string problem). So I guess that leaves assessment. How could we use youtube as an assessment platform? Well, we could use it as a repository for student videos – that we could then assess. True there is no formal question bank available to assess understanding of the videos but that is not the only form of assessment. And the comment threads could be used to encourage deeper level thinking, comprehension, analysis, discussion…..eliciting comments and input from students on the video they’ve just watched. Food for thought…..
Regardless of the resource –OERs are definitely making my job easier and allowing me and my students access to information like never before.