Video+Reflections


 * VIDEOS **

“How to Live Before You Die”

I hadn’t ever heard of Steve Jobs before this video so I didn’t know what to expect when I pressed play. I didn’t expect to be inspired by his speech. His points truly made me think about my life and career, but made me wonder why he was saying this to college graduates who have already decided what they are going to do the rest of their lives. His stories were amazing, and his accomplishments were astounding. His final quote “Stay hungry, stay foolish” is an interesting way to conclude his speech. I am still wondering exactly what that means. Maybe that’s the purpose of the quote to keep us thinking about our decisions and lives.

WatchKnow Video—Point, Line, Plane []

This was an introductory lesson on points, lines, and planes. It was done by podcasting. The author did a good job introducing the new geometric concept to students. It was done exactly how I would teach the basic geometric concepts. This site also provides numerous videos that I could include in my social studies curriculum.

Community Tools []

The community tools focused on explaining web 2.0 tools such as Edmodo, Google Docs, wikispaces, and PB Works. Edmodo is similar to twitter but allows teachers to group and manage student accounts. It provides a place to add word documents, which is a shortcoming of kidblog. Teachers can post assignments and messages to students. Google Docs provides an online sharing program. It has a “chat” area so changes can be made on the document and explained in the “chat” area. Finally this video discussed how the use of a wiki space could be incorporated into the classroom. It provides a site where many videos can be posted. Edmodo would be a great tool to incorporate into a middle school and high school setting, but a wiki could be used at any educational level.

Math TV []

This site took a little more manipulation to understand how to use it. I finally figured out I had to click on the picture of the students or teachers to get the lesson. The first video I tried was a commercial and after that was complete a very brief study skill was presented. When I decided to click on the pictures, I learned that students were teaching math skills in very short videos. I think this would be a very useful tool for a student who forgets the steps in math problems and needs a quick refresher to remind him/her of the steps in that process. I watched a video on how to write a ratio as a fraction. The student presenting did a very thorough job of demonstrating the steps in solving these types of problems.

10. Mankind is No Island []

It was quite an interesting video. The question posted was “What message is this video trying to tell us?” I read the words carefully and listened to the music, and I think it was reminding us to be aware of others’ needs and to help rather than look away. Even though we live our own lives, we must not be an “island”; we must connect with everyone in our community!

As I was searching for a video to review, there were many that I viewed. However, I was disappointed by one video that would have been great to incorporate into my social studies classes, but it used a curse word. But I found many other videos that would work into my curriculum.