Animate Learning with Digital Video
By Joyce Valenza -- School Library Journal, 9/1/2006
| See below for the resource list available only online. |
Video-on-demand database services offer K–12-appropriate content, which teachers can use to create customized learning tools and handy playlists. Accompanied by instructional materials, these databases are searchable by keyword, subject area, grade level, and curriculum standards. Among the subscription choices: Unitedstreaming.com (www.unitedstreaming.com) from Discovery Education; Schlessinger’s SAFARI Montage (safarimontage.com), a server-based alternative with core content packages for K–8, K–12, and 9–12; PowerMediaPlus.com (www.powermediaplus.com); Classroom Content Click! (www.ndmccc.com/index.jsp) by New Dimension Media, and FMG (Films Media Group) On Demand (www.cambridgeol.com/FMGOnDemand.aspx). There’s also Brain Pop (www.brainpop.com), with its standards-based short animated movies for K–8, and Atomic Learning (www.atomiclearning.com), which offers software tutorials and training.
Though access to such resources may be tricky in some schools, free video sites are widely available online. The major choices include Google (video.google.com) and Yahoo! (video.yahoo.com). There’s the self-described SearchForVideo (www.searchforvideo.com), also available in Spanish (www.searchforvideo.com/espanol). Visit YouTube (youtube.com), Guba (www.guba.com), and Lulu.tv (www.lulu.tv) to access original videos uploaded by users.
One of my favorite specialized archives for my students is the Research Channel (researchchannel.org/program). This consortium of research universities and corporate research divisions offers live Webcasts and a video library of nearly 3,000 scholarly programs, with new releases added each week. Then there’s the Open Video Project (www.open-video.org) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and the Annenberg/CPB Project (www.learner.org/resources), with video-on-demand educational programs in math, art, geography, literature, and science. The Internet Archive hosts a Moving Image Archive (www.archive.org/details/movies), featuring Universal Newsreel films produced from 1929 to 1967.
News is perhaps the video resource in greatest demand and the options are vast. Yahoo! News Video (news.yahoo.com/video) offers breaking stories, as well as links to video content from CNN, AP, CBS, ABC, and Reuters. PBS NewsHour (www.pbs.org/newshour/video) offers a rich archive of video produced since 2000 on the regions of the world, politics, the environment, health, the military, and more. C-SPAN offers a long list of classroom resources (www.c-span.org/classroom/resources.asp) relating to current events, history, government, and literature. MSNBC offers Video On Demand (www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8004316/) as well as a significant slide show archive (www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5114929). Other news sources include: CNN Video (www.cnn.com/video), CBS News Video (www.cbsnews.com/sections/i_video/main500251.shtml), Fox News (www.foxnews.com), and ABC News Video Index (abcnews.go.com/Video).
Channel One (www.channelone.com), a bit controversial for its commercialism, offers free video resources developed specifically for high school students, including Channel One News and special series on MySpace, Hurricane Katrina, and other topics. For an international perspective, especially for world language classes, visit the news media resources organized by Bates College on Language Learning and Technology (abacus.bates.edu/lrc/llt.html).
For video resources in science and social studies, I recommend the following:
Science:
- Teachers’ Domain: Multimedia Resources for the Classroom and Professional Development (www.teachersdomain.org/tdhome.html)
- The PBS Nature site (www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/database.html)
- The Howard Hughes Medical Institute Biointeractive (www.hhmi.org/biointeractive)
- NOVA (www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/programs.html) are conveniently segmented into chapters and include films on anthropology, disasters, Nova teachers’ archive (www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/teachers/video.html).
- NASA Video Gallery (www.nasa.gov/multimedia/videogallery/index.html)
- NASA TV (www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html)
Social studies:
- National Geographic Channel (cgi.nationalgeographic.com/channel/video)
- The American Memory Motion Picture Collection (lcweb2.loc.gov/papr/mpixhome.html)
- CyberLC (www.loc.gov/today/cyberlc/)
- The National Archives Video Sections (video.google.com/nara.html)
- History Channel archive (www.historychannel.com/broadband)
- EASE History (www.easehistory.org/index2.html)
- C-Span’s American Presidents Life Portraits (www.americanpresidents.org).
- BallStateUniversity’s Electronic Field Trips (www.bsu.edu/eft/home/00front.htm)
For a more comprehensive list of streaming video and webcast sites, and a “pathfinder starter” visit mciu.org/~spjvweb/video.html.
