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Streaming Video in the Classroom |
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Written by Darren Fix
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For the past two years, digital video has
quickly taken hold of science educators' attention as a valuable
tool that can be incorporated into the classroom. While it may be
true that a picture is worth a thousand words, a short video or
animation may be worth a thousand pictures. It makes sense then
that educators are looking for access to libraries of easily
searchable, FREE, and quality video. Enter YouTube and Google
Video.
Google Video is the world's first open
online video marketplace, where you can search for, watch and even
buy an ever-growing collection of video. Just type in your search
term (try chemistry demonstration or science experiment). The content works best by
viewing through high-speed Internet, which most school districts
have installed or are currently installing. But if you don't have
high speed at your school, you can download much of this content at
your local library or other location that does have high speed
connection and view it using the downloadable Google video player.
While YouTube is currently owned by Google, I've found
that many videos are easier found by searching directly on
YouTube's website. Here is a great video I found for physical changes and the principles of pressure
(and the potential danger of pressure!). My students were engaged
by the fact that a small 2 L plastic bottle can create such a large
bang. The concepts of pressure and phase changes are things they
will likely remember, since this video has the elements of relating
to students' experience and interests (remember what is was like
to be young and pull stupid stunts?).
The most powerful feature I see of these
streaming video websites are not the download features, but the
sharing and collaboration features. Students can instantly share
video of science experiments or video taken with a cellphone at
home. Through upload features on both sites, students can upload
video for free, allowing others throughout the world to view what
they learned.
Tags: streaming video technology free resources digital |