K to 5 Educational Videos

Posts Tagged ‘educational videos’

Educational Videos Support Your ELL Students

Thursday, August 26th, 2010

K-5 educational videos support your ELL students, too. When you use videos in your lessons, your ELL students are shown images and actions that are identified by their spoken word and usually accompanied by the written word, as well. Video shows what is being taught, teaches vocabulary, models processes, and can be creatively used to assess language skills and content objectives.

Since elementary-level videos have more “elementary” vocabulary descriptions and cover all content areas, they can be used to teach language and content at the same time. In fact, by using content to teach language, your lessons can be more interesting for all of your students and save you time.

By using the action and images in video programs and clips, your ELL students can at least have an idea about what is being taught. They may not know the English words yet, but they may know or identify the content so they can access their language in their thought processes and begin to translate to English.

Since one of the main designs of K to 5 videos is vocabulary, it is a great resource to use to teach the meaning of words. Students get to see an image or an action or an event, and then hear the words and describing sentences spoken in English. They also get explanations and connections to other ideas through spoken words and images that can help them develop concepts in English that meet the learning objectives of your lessons.

Your ELL students are also learning cultural values and norms at the same time as they are learning English. Video programs can be used to model behaviors. Programs about community rules and laws can show your students behavioral norms in their new country and at the same time learn the words in their new language. Health videos can show students about personal hygiene and hand washing. Science videos can be used to model experiment procedures so when the experiment begins, they have had a visual introduction to the process. What you can’t explain with words you can show with pictures.

Get creative with your assessment. Re-playing video clips can be a great tool. You can use it to check for understanding during your lesson. By using video clips to offer your ELL students multiple choice answers, and even some explanation in their own language, they can have success in learning by giving them a different form to show what they know when they can identify images that they may not have the words for—yet!

Since elementary level videos have more basic vocabulary and cover a wide range of content objectives, educational videos can teach language and content at the same time. The best part is that both your ELL students AND your English-speaking students develop their vocabulary and learn about the world.

Check here for additional information on choosing and using videos in your lessons.

Tags: educational videos, ELL, K-5 videos
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Educational Videos Can Pique Interest in the Anticipatory Set

Friday, September 25th, 2009

When I was teaching, there was a common response when I told the students that we were going to watch a video: I swear some kids all but took out a pillow and blanket and prepared to get a good nap in. It can be tempting to use videos to “babysit” students while you get some grading or lesson planning done. I know I have in the past, but I was wasting what really is a wonderful teaching opportunity. Educational videos can help you achieve instructional objectives effectively, so it is important to use them in the best way possible.

When using any type of media in your classroom, it is helpful to develop a good anticipatory set. This addresses key questions and helps focus the lesson before you present the video. Ask yourself:

· What do my students need to know before we watch the video?
· How can I excite their interest and keep them focused?
· How can I let my students know what is coming in age-appropriate terms?

You can approach this in any number of ways, but I like to use pre-activities that relate to the video content. For instance, if you were showing early elementary students a video related to number words, you could have them hold up their hands. Can you show me zero fingers? Can you show me many fingers? A few fingers? This gets them thinking about the terms they will be hearing and seeing in the video.

You can also use educational videos in your anticipatory sets to jump into your lesson in a way that will generate interest and provide needed variety for students. Say, for instance, you were going to have your students start a composting program at your school to reduce waste from the cafeteria. To give them an idea of what composting is all about, you could show segments from a video directly related to that subject. This allows them to see the process in action, model the steps in the process and show why it is good for the environment.

There really are unlimited ways to use media in the classroom. If you find your students are taking out the pillow and blanket – metaphorically speaking – then make sure you are using the videos as complements to your lesson, not as the whole lesson itself. There needs to be a point, a focus, in order for children to learn and for the media to work its magic. For some tips on making the most of your anticipatory sets for video, click here.

Tags: educational videos, lesson plan
Posted in Lesson Plans | 1 Comment »

Lesson Plans Incorporating Video The Right Way

Thursday, September 24th, 2009

I happened to mention to a friend that I was going to show a video to my students. Her reply was, “Oh, easy day!” I must have looked at her a bit bewildered because she added, “I mean, you don’t even have to do a lesson plan.” Nothing could be further from the truth: a video doesn’t mean an “easy day.” Instead, it is a valuable method of teaching that can be tremendously effective and enhance the quality of learning in your classroom.

Using a video to its best advantage involves much more popping the DVD into the player and turning down the lights. Several techniques can help you maximize the great potential of videos in your classroom:

· Do some pre-video work. Talk with your students about the main points in the video or any new vocabulary. Give them a viewing activity. For elementary students, this can be as simple as watching for specific images or colors – whatever your teaching objective is. This will also keep them focused on the video.

· Use the video as part of your lesson but not the total lesson. Using an entire video when just a portion would do is counterproductive. Students lose focus, and you end up wasting valuable instructional time.

· You can break the video into smaller segments. In between segments, take breaks to discuss or do an activity. This allows for students to remain focus and not be lulled to sleep by the flickering lights.

· Feel free to stop the video any time. Ask a question. Highlight a particular point or image. This keeps focus and keeps students engaged. When they know they are responsible for the material and they will have to participate actively, it gives the video much more value.

· This brings us to a very important point: make the students responsible. A video is not just time to sit mindlessly and passively. Use videos for active learning by building tasks and opportunities for discussion into your lesson plan.

Teachers have to juggle several balls during each class. When using media, they have to make sure the videos are pertinent to the lesson, they have to provide quality activities, and they have to make sure the students are actively engaged.

Are you using videos as well as you could be? Improve your lessons right now by watching this video “The 7 Biggest Mistakes Teachers Make Using Video in the Classroom” and by downloading and following the techniques in the Free Expert Guide.

Tags: educational videos, lesson plan
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School Videos Help the Learning Process

Saturday, August 1st, 2009

Teachers often use videos or TV clips to supplement lessons they are teaching. School videos are an effective way of to address different learning modalities by stimulating visual memory. Maybe you read something that you can’t remember all of the details of, or you recall the teacher saying something but you can’t quite pull it fully into your mind. Because images often stick in your mind, using videos allows you to apply your visual literacy in learning.

In the ninth grade I was shown a film about the consequences of smoking cigarettes. It had a cowboy in the tight Wrangler jean, the big belt buckle, and the faded hat. He had that leathery wind-weathered skin. The film showed him out on the range, corralling a bunch of cows in front of a big sky sunset, with a cigarette dangling from his mouth. In the next scene he was in a white room. He was speaking through his throat. A hospitalized Marlboro Man with lung and mouth cancer.

Talk about visual literacy! How did I read that? No one in that video had to tell me smoking was a bad idea. All I had to do was read the images to know that I didn’t want those problems. School videos are often very effective in this way. They are able to instill a point that might have otherwise been overlooked. My teacher could have said that smoking was bad. I might have read it was bad. None of that made the same impact as seeing a video that had the same point, but in a much more real scenario.

Visual literacy includes how our brains process visual imagery and how imagery is a powerful learning tool. Click here for research and information on visual literacy.

Tags: educational videos, school videos, visual literacy
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Educational Videos Help Your Lesson

Friday, July 17th, 2009

Videos Aren’t The Enemy

As a teacher, I know first hand that a lot of time goes into creating lesson plans. Typically there are four steps:

Picking the topic
Researching the topic
Developing a presentation to keep students engaged

The truth is, we live in a visual world, but videos aren’t the enemy. They can help get a point across. Using educational video in your lessons is a great way to make the curriculum come to life. There is nothing like teaching a unit on the ocean and having a video full of detailed images and full of ocean sounds for the students to see and hear. Video helps capture and present the many different habitats, species and regions oceans encompass around the world.

Research has proven that visual, auditory and kinesthetic learners benefit from video resources in addition to lectures and white boards text. For the learner that needs to experience the lesson visually, educational videos present another option. With hundreds of videos available across subject areas and designed for specific grade levels and units of study, all teachers can utilized these resources to make their lessons more effective.

As much as we would all like to show full length videos, it’s not always an option. Carefully placed video clips placed at important points in your lesson improve your lesson. Teaching a history lesson on the Louisiana Purchase? Find short clips to make it relevant. Teaching about metamorphosis? Let your students see the changes of a butterfly in real time. They’ll love it and you’ll love watching them.

Using video in your lessons will help you turn on the light bulbs in your students minds. As educators, that’s why we teach – the “Aaah ha” moments. Have one in each lesson.

Tags: educational videos, visual literacy
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The Advantage of Educational DVDs

Wednesday, June 24th, 2009

I believe educational DVDs and videos help add interest and excitement to a classroom lesson. Textbooks and other types of written media, even when filled with interesting information, cannot carry us off to places the same way a school video can.

For example, I can read about an expedition through a Brazilian rainforest and get a sense of what it might be like, but seeing a well-produced video can make me feel as if I am actually there. I can see the trees and the wildlife, I can hear the sounds of the animals and birds, and I can practically feel the cool rain pouring down in an afternoon thunderstorm. These images and impressions are ones that I could not get from reading a textbook or even looking at still pictures.

School videos also appeal to a wide range of students. There are students who do not enjoy the reading process or find learning from books to be difficult, but almost all students enjoy educational DVDs and videos. I think they do a great job of holding the interest of nearly all learners, and they often have interactive content, such as interviews and bonus materials that make them a great classroom resource. Click here for some valuable information on how and why to use educational DVDs and videos in your classroom lessons.

Tags: educational videos, school videos
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Why School Videos are Important

Sunday, June 14th, 2009

There are many reasons why school videos are important in school. They provide a visual to what is being taught in the classroom. They are interesting to watch because you are actually seeing what is being explained rather than just looking at a teacher the whole class period. Other than these two reasons there are many more to consider.

Usually when hearing that there is going to be a video during the class period, students will take this as a time to take a nape, pass notes, skip class, etc. Unfortunately, some students do this and some do not. I have asked some people how their views on videos in school were, and surprisingly, even some of the bad students said that they remembered a lot of the videos and that they wish they had paid more attention back then because it was actually interesting what they were “learning” from the videos. However, being a young teen in high school, they only halfway paid attention to the videos, which is why they do not remember all of them.

If we make sure that videos that are being displayed in the classroom are interesting videos then we have more of a chance that he students will watch them. Obviously choosing boring videos with a boring monotone voice explaining the video will be boring to them. The good thing about videos is that due to the visuals in the videos, students are more likely to soak in, and remember what they are watching, because it is more interesting when you see what is going on, rather than being explained it in class by the teacher, and having to use your own imagination to create an image.

School videos are a positive part of the classroom and should continue expanding young adolescent minds into the world of education.

By using videos consistently in instruction, you can take advantage of the natural interests of your students to watch and listen to teach your lesson objectives more effectively and more efficiently.