Use Videos to Bring Some “Va Va Va Voom” to a Lesson!

I wanted to spice up my lesson on fact and opinion, but I wanted to make sure I was in the upper echelon of Bloom’s Taxonomy. At this point in their schooliverse, my students are well versed in writing F and O on a worksheet. Not because of me, because you know how I feel about worksheets.  I wanted to step it up! What to do? What to do?

Wellllll, now that we have access to Youtube,  I decided to take advantage of it! I was already a big fan of using videos in the classroom before our Youtube access was granted. Prior to Youtube, I used, and still do, WatchKnowLearn, which is a great way to watch educational videos, especially if you can’t access Youtube. There is also Discovery Education/United Streaming and Youtube Education.

Back to the lesson.  I decided to locate commercials on Youtube, and show them to my students.  They watched the videos, and distinguished fact from opinion.  This led to conversations about truth in advertising.  And of course, I couldn’t stop there. My students are working in cooperative groups, creating original commercials. I gave them a Fact/Opinion organizer so that they could list facts and opinions about their product, and incorporate it into their commercial, which will be recorded. I’m sure watching the videos on Youtube,(commercials), will help them create excellent original commercials.

And this all started with a video….

My class made me play this particular video every.single.day. But, it served it’s purpose, everyone knew everything there was to know about a polygon by the end of the unit.  Whenever I come across an interesting video, I post it on our class blog and/or Edmodo. We are studying Mount Everest, and the videos we have watched…  Well,let’s  just say, only reading about it, couldn’t begin to compare. Videos inspire, teach, entertain, there are a myriad of uses for them in the classroom!

WARNING! WARNING! Never, ever, ever, show a video without watching it first!!!!!

Funny story, well, now it’s funny, it wasn’t funny when it happened.

I set up my Mount Everest video that I have posted on Teachertube.  I turned on the Smartboard because, well, I was on Teachertube. It was my video, so I knew it was safe. I started the video, and what blares out into my room? “Rachel Ray is going to talk about sex!” What the…? It was a commercial for the Rachael Ray show! My kids crack up as I frantically turn off the speaker and flick the remote simultaneously.  The remote wouldn’t work for some reason, so I placed my body  in front of the Smartboard to block the screen, while continuing to frantically hit the off button.!!!   I talked to my kids after I turned off the projector, they thought it was quite funny.  Thankfully, I did not get any irate phone calls from parents. Lesson learned, do not turn on the projector until the actual video begins! Pass it on.:)