Tuesday, November 28, 2006

Teachers' TV!

This posting is a continuation of the previous one about using online video...

teacher's tv
http://www.teachers.tv/

This is quite an exciting find! Teachers' TV has over a thousand online video programs (or programmes as these Brits would have it) on K-12 teacher professional development topics.

The first one I watched was:
Internet Research and Podcasting
http://www.teachers.tv/video/3207
This episode covers webquests and podcasting as used in secondary classrooms. Plus a number of excellent tech tips--for example, an elementary teacher says she has her students turn off their monitors when they are supposed to be paying attention to her in the computer lab.

The streaming was pretty darn slow, even with my broadband connection from the university, so I'd suggest downloading these very professionally produced Windows Media and Qucktime files (it seems you have to register to download the files, though you can view them without registering; registration is free). They also sell DVDs of some shows.

This episode was, of course, about teaching with technology. However, the majority of these videos are not about teaching with technology, but instead range all over the K-12 age range and content areas.

Other examples:
Body Image for Beginners
http://www.teachers.tv/video/4888
Much of this one is teachers talking about the subject, but it also features fascinating but kinda saddening clips from interviews from fifth-grade students who are already quite aware that they are "too fat" or "too freckled."

KS1 Literacy: Laying the Foundations 2
http://www.teachers.tv/video/220
in this video, an experienced teacher describes and shows a Vygotsky-based approach to early language and literacy learning. The fact that you can actually see what she is talking about in action in the classroom really makes this video useful.

The site is well-constructed. You can bookmark the various videos you are interested in (important when there are so many), and it keeps track of recently viewed videos so you can easily find them.

But that's not all.... (Like they say in the late-night infomercials.) When you visit this site, you also get

InClass tv
http://www.teachers.tv/inclasstv

This, a subsite of teachers.tv, hosts a collection of videos for showing to students, again ranging all over the K-12 curriculum. Of course, some kids may have problems at time understanding the English accents.

The home page highlights videos on math (or maths), PE and social studies.

All in all, a tremendous source of videos for K-12 teachers!

Chris

2 comments:

Unknown said...

jThanks for the info. One of the services you mentioned, Discovery Channel's unitedstreaming, is by far the greatest resource if have ever seen. I've taught Biology and Chemistry for the last 7 years and have been fortunate enough to have worked in districts that have subscribed to this service. I encourage any teacher who wants to truly engage their students to seek out this service for their school. Your students have helped build services like youtube,now owned by Google. Accessing, watching and creating video is what excites this generation and it is so easy for us as teachers to do this using a service like unitedstreaming. They practically hold your hand and walk you through how to make powerful lessons. I don't know how many Discovery employees were once teachers, but after attending both virtual and in-person trainings, I've yet to meet one that wasn't. They actually get what we as educators are tasked with doing.

I also called and asked about the "more than half of schools" thing and they said that 13 states license the service so every school has access to their library of 5,000 videos with over 70,000 schools having licenses in the US. Why wouldn't every state license this? I'd rather have this service then my set of out-dated, poorly written, $50+/student text books.

Just a little rant from one of a million under-paided, rarely listened to teachers.

Anonymous said...

why incorporate? I cannot answer...