Video Clips in the Classroom

When I was doing my student teaching, I had the fortune of working in a school that had a Smartboard in every classroom. It was so great to be able to pull up a video on Lewis and Clark to reinforce what we read in the history book. When we were talking about Russia and Ukrainian eggs, I found a video that gave the history and showed the actual collection of the famous eggs. When we were talking about the famous composer Tchaikovsky, I found a video of his work. Having another source of information for the students really helps bring the concepts to life!
One video that I would use in my classroom is the 50 states and their capitols video. What a unique resource for the students to be able to use when learning the capitols! Informational songs are fun and really help students retain the information. I still remember the 50 states song from when I was in elementary school. This video would serve as another tool for my students success.

RSS: The New Killer App for Educators

After watching Lee LeFevers video on RSS feeds, I was excited to take on the task of setting up my bloglines account. What an amazing feature to be able to subscribe to a site in one click and have that blog appear on my bloglines account! I love this quick and efficient method of getting relevant information all in one place!
One interesting post that I found was from Cool Cat Teacher. The title of the post was "What is the Deal with this Ning thing?" The author was discussing Ning's decision to downsize and begin charging for their normally free resources. Her perspective was interesting. She mentioned that it was their company and they owe it to their investors to be profitable, but she fears educators will not be given an option to pay to save what they have already posted on the free educational sites.

http://coolcatteacher.blogspot.com/2010/04/what-is-deal-with-this-ning-thing.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+CoolCatTeacherBlog+%28Cool+Cat+Teacher+Blog%29&utm_content=Bloglines