Technology Tuesday: You Tube

Dear New Teacher,

With all the demands placed on you as a beginning teacher, it is easy to forget about some of the teaching tools that you can use in your classroom, especially technology. Every Tuesday I will showcase a new technology that you can integrate into your teaching, either as a resource for your own learning or as something your students can use as well.

This Tuesday we will start with a technology that I am sure many of you are familiar with: You Tube. You Tube has been beneficial to me as a teacher in two ways,

1. As a resource for my own personal learning.

Often when I am looking for inspiration, either for a lesson or teaching in general I will turn to You Tube. One of my favorite video’s is from a TED presentation by Sir Ken Robinson in which he asserts that schools are killing students creativity.

There are many other videos out there with insight like that presented by Robinson. Do you have any favorite inspirational or motivational videos? How do you think a video like this could be used in a classroom setting?

2. As a resource to be used in my classroom.

This video is about 10 minutes, which is generally as long as I try to let video clips get. It provides a great introduction of the American Revolution that can either serve as an intro or a way to activate prior knowledge.

Pros: A wealth of videos to choose from, easy to use and free.

Cons: Many schools block You Tube, also contains videos that may not be appropriate for adolescents-requires monitoring if student’s are accessing site.

*It should be noted that You Tube is not the only video resource that can be utilized as a resource. In the coming weeks, other video based sites will be discussed as well.

For those of you who have the available technology, a great project would be to have students create their own video on an assigned topic. This is a bit advanced; so don’t feel overwhelmed if you don’t feel ready to tackle something like this right away!

Happy Teaching!

Mallory