I must admit that I didn't use United Streaming this past year even though I knew it was a terrific resource. Boy, did I miss out! One of the very first things we are going to be covering in our science curriculum is the difference between evidence and inference. The textbook talks about the puzzle of the Iceman and I found the PERFECT video. It's the Discovery Channel video on the current ideas of the final hours of the Iceman's life. Along with the video there was a curriculum guide, additional resources, etc. It didn't take me long to find this video, when I typed in the broad topic of the Unit (inquiry) and then typed in the grade band (9-12), the Iceman appeared.
I'm hoping to use United Streaming on a regular basis this year. Even though our new science curriculum is extremely 'hands-on', there is still quite a bit of time devoted to traditional text based learning and this is difficult for many of my students. For example reading about cellular respiration is not particularly exciting, nor easy. If I can find a vdeo to interject into the lessons it will be quite helpful, particularly to my students who struggle with this level of reading.
When I went to Texas for the AVID training, they talked about using video in the classroom and how useful it can be, particularly for certain students. However, they also said, that you can't just turn on a video and expect kids to learn anything. It needs to be shown in relatively short segments (10 minutes) and then have kids process that information in some way before going on to the next segment. This makes a lot of sense to me and it's one of the reasons that I never really used video much in my classroom. It just didn't seem to me that my students were getting much out of it. I'm excited to revisit using video in my classroom this coming year.
Library Resources: I liked the homepage. It was easy to navigate, fun to view, well-laid out... Having access to the entire catalog is awesome. I must admit I was a little disappointed that neither science nor math had any resources/topics listed. (I'd be glad to help with this.) The other thing I was wondering about was would it be possible to purchase some online subscriptions to professional resources for the staff. i.e. an online subscription to Mathematics Teacher (NCTM), Science Teacher (NSTA), online Discovery magazine...
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2 comments:
Hey Jan,
If we've accomplished one thing with this class, I hope we've enabled all of the participants to make discoveries like you made with UnitedStreaming. We have so little time in the school year to learn new tools while prepping for all of our classes; it's good to be able to take the time and really find use in an available resource or to discover new resources to use. I don't always find content for every topic I'd like on UnitedStreaming (not lots on technology that I can use at my level), but when I do find something, I like that I can trust the quality.
And, your comments about the difference between showing a video and doing nothing to further that learning, are really important. If instead, as you suggest, we show 10 minutes and then help students to process and connect with what they saw, the learning must be better, more lasting.
As for the library resources - I would love for you to share resources for your topics. So far, we've only added those that have come up for specific assignments - I'd love to have sites specific to math, science and any assignments that you might do involving research. Let's find a time/way to coordinate that!
A colleague in the master's group presentations I worked with did an action research project to see what effect using videos would have on supporting learning. He found exactly as you heard in your training. The class of students that watched supportive videos did no better than the group that didn't watch the videos.
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