Tag: teaching with video

Create Interactive Video Lessons With ClickView

ClickView was one of the first fifteen things that caught my eye during last week’s ISTE Live conference. It’s a tool that you can use to create interactive video lessons with videos you’ve made as well as with videos you find online. There are other tools like ClickView available to teachers. What caught my attention […]

Kindergarten and the Summer Solstice

Tomorrow is my oldest daughter’s last day of Kindergarten. We’re going to celebrate with ice cream! We might also stay up and play outside a little later tomorrow. We can do that because it won’t get dark until late in the evening as it will be the longest stretch of daylight of the year. That’s […]

Fahrenheit vs. Celsius – Another Lesson Inspired by My Daughters

On the way to school this morning my older daughter pointed out that it was 62 degrees Fahrenheit. Her younger sister responded by asking, “what’s Fahrenheit?” To that her older sister said, “it’s the temperatures we use in America.”  The conversation between my daughters prompted me to point out that our Canadian friends and most […]

Skim vs. Whole Milk – Another Lesson Prompted by My Daughters

On Friday afternoon when I picked up my youngest daughter from preschool she promptly informed me that she now only likes 2% milk and not whole milk. That was her reason of the day for not drinking milk.  My daughter’s proclamation reminded me of a lesson that I shared years ago before I even had […]

The Effects of Talking to Yourself

I spend a good deal of time talking to myself. I often do this while riding my bike. Sometimes I do it to motivate myself to get over a hill. Other times I do it because I’m puzzling through a problem and talking aloud to myself helps with that, I think. All that to say, […]

Short Video Lessons About Memorial Day

Next Monday is Memorial Day. Students often confuse the origin and purpose of Memorial Day with those of Veterans Day. The following videos can help students understand the origins and meanings of Memorial Day and Veterans Day. The Meaning of Memorial Day is a two minute video covering the origins of the holiday in the […]

Annotate Videos With Text and Pictures

Timelinely is a neat tool for annotating videos that you find on YouTube to share with your students. To get started simply paste a YouTube URL into the Timelinely homepage to get started. Once you have entered the URL for a video, a new screen appears that allows you to add tags or annotations to […]

Great Art Explained

Despite the efforts of my friend Maggie, I don’t always understand what makes one work of art great and a similar-looking one fit for display in a Hilton Garden Inn. I thought about that last weekend when I came across a YouTube channel called Great Art Explained. The channel seems to have been made for […]

167 Math In “Real Life” Lessons

Math in Real Life is a series of 167 TED-Ed lessons and TED Talks. The “real life” context in these lessons isn’t things like “how calculating percentages helps you be a frugal shopper.” The “real life” context found in the videos in the Math in Real Life series is broad in nature. For example, you will […]

A Good Series on How Computers Work

We use computers every day. But how many of us actually know how they work? Sure we know how to use the software, but I’m thinking about the hardware. How does that aspect of your computer work? Code.org has a good video series that addresses that question and more. Through watching the videos in How […]

Stocks, Bonds, Options, and Economics

A couple of days ago I published a short video that I made to explain stock options. In planning to make that video I went back through my archives to look at some related resources that I’ve shared over the years. Here are some highlights from my archive of resources for teaching and learning about […]

A Brief Explanation of Options

As kind of a hobby I dabble in options trading (I made $6 last week). I mentioned this to a friend of mine last Friday and he, like many other people I’ve talked to about it over the years, said, “I’ve heard of that, but I don’t what it means.” That conversation inspired me to […]

Concise Explanations of DNS & IP

One of the things that quickly became clear when I started teaching an introduction to computer science course for high school freshmen was that while they are happy to use the Internet, they don’t really understand how the Internet works. I suppose the same can be said for lots of adults too. The Domain Name […]

25 YouTube Tips for Teachers

A couple of weeks ago I shared directions on how to start a YouTube channel. Yesterday, I published directions on how to add end screens to your videos. Those are just two of twenty-five YouTube tutorial videos that I’ve published over the last few years. All of my YouTube tips for teachers are now arranged […]

Learning About Languages and The Mysteries of Vernacular

Last week I wrote a blog post titled Two Lessons for a Wicked Cold Day. After publishing that post it occurred to me that readers who are not familiar with New England may be wondering why I chose the word wicked. Sure enough, someone emailed me last night to ask what I meant by “wicked […]

How Birds Stay Warm in Winter – And How to Help Them

For the last few days it has been exceptionally cold here in Maine. Birds and squirrels keep showing up at our bird feeders despite the cold or perhaps because of the cold. While looking at the birds at our feeders yesterday my youngest daughter asked how the birds stay warm enough to not freeze their […]

Two Lessons for a Wicked Cold Day

Over the next two days here in Maine we’re expecting some of the coldest temperatures and windchills of the last 50 years. As we say in Maine, it’s going to be wicked cold! It’s going to be so cold that kids will stay inside for recess and we’ll leave the water dripping in our faucets […]

What Are Carbohydrates and How Do They Impact Your Health?

One of my goals for early part of 2023 is to set a new personal best time at a bike race that I’m entered in for the third year in a row. To do that I’m watching my diet much more carefully than I typically do at this time of year. Like many people, foods […]

Short Lessons on Stocks and Bonds

A few nights ago I had a long zone 2 ride on my indoor bike trainer. Whenever I have one of those workouts scheduled, I queue up a favorite movie to watch. Last night I watched The Big Short starring Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling, Christian Bale, and Brad Pitt. For those who aren’t familiar with […]

BookWidgets Adds a New Video Quiz Option to Use in Google Classroom and Beyond

At the end of last year I highlighted the collection of more than thirty activity templates from BookWidgets that can be used in Google Classroom. This week BookWidgets added a useful new widget simply called Video Quiz.  As the name implies, the video quiz widget in BookWidgets lets you create a video-based quiz to use […]

Best of 2022 – ViewPure Alternatives

As I do at this time every year, I’m taking the week off to ski and play with my kids, shovel snow, and generally not think about work. I have some of the most popular posts of the year scheduled to republish this week. New posts will resume in the new year. Earlier this week […]

Best of 2022 – Five Good Resources for Learning About Airplanes and Airlines

As I do at this time every year, I’m taking the week off to ski and play with my kids, shovel snow, and generally not think about work. I have some of the most popular posts of the year scheduled to republish this week. New posts will resume in the new year. We’re planning a […]

How a Generator Works – And Other Short Lessons About Generating Electricity

Last weekend we had a huge snowstorm that knocked out the electrical power in my whole neighborhood and in about half of our town. In my neighborhood we were without electricity from Friday night through Monday afternoon. Fortunately, we have a portable generator that provides electricity for the essentials in our house and we have […]

How Airplanes Fly – And Other Good Resources for Learning About Flying

I’m currently reading Bill Bryson’s book, One Summer: America, 1927. The book is centered around significant events of that summer including Charles Lindbergh’s crossing of the Atlantic. Airplanes have come a long way since Lindbergh flew in the Spirit of St. Louis, an airplane that he couldn’t see out of when looking forward. The physics […]

Three YouTube Features Every Teacher Should Know How to Use

In last week’s Practical Ed Tech Newsletter I detailed a few features of YouTube Studio that every teacher who uploads videos to YouTube should know how to use. The video included in that newsletter can be seen here. Chances are that even if you don’t upload videos to YouTube, you probably use YouTube to find […]

YouTube Studio Settings for Teachers

Many years ago I was at the annual ISTE conference when I heard a speaker say, “if you want the biggest authentic audience for your students’ work, put it on YouTube.” I think he had a good point because it is possible for your students’ work be seen by millions of people if it’s really […]

5 Things You Can Make With Microsoft Flip Besides Selfie Videos

Microsoft Flip (formerly known as Flipgrid) is a great tool for getting to know your students through the use of short selfie-style videos. I’ve also used it for asynchronous classroom discussions. You might have done the same with your students then gotten to the point of wondering, “okay, what’s next?” If that’s where you are […]

My Top Five Tips for Creating Instructional Videos

Over the years I’ve made more than 1,000 videos for my YouTube channel and nearly as many for students in my classrooms. Here are five tips that I’ve figured out along the way. Keep it short and sweet. Two five minute videos are better than one ten minute video. Even though it’s the same amount […]

Short Lessons on the Differences Between Canadian and American Thanksgiving

Monday is Thanksgiving Day in Canada. It’s about six weeks earlier than it is here in the United States. I’ve celebrated both versions of Thanksgiving and I can tell you that there are a lot of similarities between the two. There are also some differences between them. The following videos provide a humorous look at […]

Brief Explanations of Indigenous Peoples’ Day and Why Some States No Longer Have Columbus Day

Monday is Indigenous Peoples’ Day here in Maine. In other states it is still referred to as Columbus Day. The Daily Bellringer offers a good video that explains the history of Columbus Day and why some cities and states are now celebrating Indigenous Peoples’ Day instead. Watch the video on YouTube and open the description to find […]

Three Student Video Contests

Video creation contests can be a fun way to get students thinking about academic topics and then producing videos to demonstrate their understanding of those topics. This fall I’ve written blog posts featuring three different video contests for students. A summary of all three is included below.  Economic Education Video Contest The Council for Economics Education […]

Updated – Screencasting on Chromebooks – Built-in Tool vs. Third-party Tools

Back in June Google introduced a new screencasting tool for Chromebooks. Back then I wrote a comparison of the Chrome OS screencast tool and some others that are available to use on Chromebooks. Since then Screencastify has changed their free plan and Flipgrid has been renamed as Microsoft Flip. So I think it’s time that I […]

The Science of Pizza, Diets, and the Esophagus

Last week two of my favorite YouTube channels, TED-Ed and SciShow Kids, published new videos on the topics of food and weight loss. And those videos reminded me of the Reactions playlist of 76 videos about food science including Better Pizza Through Chemistry. Between the three videos there are lessons for elementary school, middle school, […]

How to Find TED-Ed Lessons by Grade Level

Yesterday, I received an email from someone who saw my post about TED-Ed’s The Writer’s Workshop. She was wondering if there is a way to search TED-Ed videos by grade level. That’s not a function available on YouTube, but it is a function available on the TED-Ed lessons website. To sort TED-Ed lessons by grade level go […]

My Updated Big List of Tools for a Variety of Classroom Video Projects

Around this time last fall I published a big list of my go-to tools for creating videos with students. Since then some of the tools in the list were rebranded and or had some notable updates. This is my updated list of recommended video creation tools for classroom projects.  By the way, I created the […]

Moose Tracks and a Lesson on Eyes vs. Cameras

A couple of days ago I was walking down a trail to one of my favorite fishing spots in all of Maine. Along the trail I saw a bunch of moose tracks. I did my best to get a good picture of them. Unfortunately, like all pictures of moose tracks that I’ve taken over the […]

Why Do We Get Dizzy? – Another Question from My Daughters

We’re going to Storyland today for the sixth or seventh time this summer (it’s one of our favorite family activities). My daughters love to go on a ride called the Turtle Twirl. I don’t love it because it makes me quite dizzy and feel a bit of nausea. I’ve seen many other parents gingerly walk […]

Significant Changes to Screencastify’s Free Plan

Screencastify is a versatile screencast recording tool that I’ve used over the years to create many kinds of instructional videos including Common Craft-style videos and virtual tours. As I write this blog post, I still prefer Screencastify to the new built-in recording option in Chromebooks. That said, it should be noted that Screencastify has just […]

Getting Started With Microsoft Flip

Back in June Microsoft threw a big party to announce that they were rebranding Flipgrid. What was once called Flipgrid is now Microsoft Flip. Fortunately, not much else changed and all of my favorite Flipgrid features still work. That said, some people have already been asking me for tutorials about Microsoft Flip. That’s why I […]

Common Craft Explains Research Papers to Students

I often use Common Craft videos as an example of creating effective video lessons without having to spend a lot of money on special equipment or software. In fact, I did that in a webinar that I hosted yesterday. The video that I used as an example was Research Papers Explained by Common Craft.  Research […]

25 Ideas for Whiteboard Videos

Years ago apps like ShowMe and Educreations helped to popularize creating whiteboard-style instructional videos. Today, screencasting tools like Screencastify and Google’s Chrome screencast tool along with Flipgrid’s whiteboard tool make it easy to create a whiteboard style video in your web browser. Regardless of the tool used, the basic premise is to draw on blank screen while talking at the […]

What Makes Us Itch? – A Science Lesson

Last weekend we had our first really nice summer-like day of the year. There was lots of sunshine, it was warm, and there was little wind. That little wind is a curse and a blessing in Maine at this time of year. It’s nice because it makes for easier bike riding. It’s bad because it’s […]

We’ve Got Worms! And More Questions from My Daughters

Earlier this week we had some relatively warm days and were able to do a little spring yard work. My daughters like to try to help with some of it. But like most four and five year old kids, they quickly get distracted. Such was the case when they discovered some worms under some leaves […]

Seven Activities for National Poetry Month

A little Twitter conversation last week reminded me that the start of the baseball season is full of hope and for all but one team ends with heartbreak. There’s a lot of poetry in that. And so it’s fitting that the start of the baseball season is in April and that April is National Poetry […]

My Five Favorite Flipgrid Video Features

Over the last few years Flipgrid has added so many great features that it has evolved beyond being just a platform for teachers to ask questions and have students record selfie videos in response. Now you can use it to create video lessons, to create audio-only conversations, and much more. In this new video I […]

What’s Onomatopoeia Mean? – Another Question from My Daughters

Every night my daughters (ages 4 and 5) ask us all kinds of interesting questions. Some of them are about things that I haven’t thought about in a long time. Some of them aren’t easy to answer in a way that they can understand. And some of them are a bit of both. That was […]

Maple Syrup Sunday! And Maple Syrup Sundaes

Today is Maple Syrup Sunday here in Maine. It’s a day when many maple syrup producers open their operations to visitors. All of them offer some type of educational program about the production of maple syrup. Many of them will have samples of their products. My favorite one has maple syrup ice cream sundaes!  A […]

What Happened in 2008? – A Crash Course in Economics

In researching for Wednesday’s post about inflation I ran across one of my old posts about Crash Course Economics. Within that thirty-six part course there is a video all about the 2008 financial crisis caused by the collapse of the housing market.  How it Happened – The 2008 Financial Crisis: Crash Course Economics #12 does […]

Alternatives to Vialogues for Annotating Videos

Yesterday morning I answered an email from a reader who was looking for some alternatives to Vialogues for annotating videos. Vialogues has been one of my go-to tools for students to use to take notes and share notes while watching a video that you share with them. Unfortunately, Vialogues is shutting down in May. If […]

Why Do We Say Ok? – Another Question from My Daughters

Last night during dinner one of my daughters asked, “what does ok mean?” My other daughter quickly followed up with, “yeah, why do we say that?” The first question we were able to answer fairly quickly and in a way that a five-year-old can understand. The second question was a little harder to answer. I […]

Good Explanations of Inflation, Recession, and Bubbles

Turn on any financial news network like CNBC these days and you’re likely to hear some discussion about inflation and concerns about recession. Even if your students aren’t listening to those stories, they might be hearing about them from their parents or perhaps in your classroom as part of a current events discussion. Financial news […]

Use Canva’s Design and Recording Tools With Your PowerPoint and Google Slides

The other day a reader sent me an interesting question that I hadn’t thought about before. That was whether or not you can use Canva’s recording studio with Google Slides. At first I thought to myself, “why not just make a screen recording of the slides with something like Screencastify?” Then I thought about it […]

How to Create and Share Clips of YouTube Videos

Over the years there have been many third-party tools that offered ways to clip and share portions of YouTube videos. Most of those don’t last too long before Google/ YouTube changes something that renders those tools useless. Now YouTube offers its own integrated tool for creating and sharing short clips of videos.  You’ll find YouTube’s […]

An Often Overlooked Flipgrid Option for Starting Conversations

In this week’s Practical Ed Tech Newsletter I shared some tools and ideas to use to try to make sure that students actually watch the instructional videos that you create for them. One of my suggestions was to try an option in Flipgrid that is hiding in plain sight.  When you post a new topic […]

Squirrels!

In my family we have a bit of a love/hate relationship with squirrels. We hate that they take so much food from our bird feeders. But we do like to watch them and my daughters do enjoy reading Those Darn Squirrels! That’s why I was intrigued when SciShow Kids released a new video all about squirrels.  […]

Lessons About the Instruments in Symphony Orchestras

Last week I was chatting with a friend and he told me about one of his daughters learning to play some music from Phantom of the Opera. That took me back to my own middle school days when I played tuba in the band and we played some music from Phantom of the Opera. All […]

A New Academic Feature in YouTube Studio

Yesterday morning I uploaded a new video to my YouTube account and noticed a new set of options that appeared when I selected the education category. Now when you upload a video to your YouTube account and select the education category you can also add additional subcategory labels to your video. Those options include academic […]

Questions From My Daughters – What Are Freckles?

Last night one of my daughters asked, “what are freckles?” I did my best to explain that freckles are spots of melanin in our skin. Of course, I then had to try to explain to my five-year-old what melanin is. She then asked why she has freckles and one of her classmates doesn’t. That was […]

Anesthesia and Tonsils

One of my daughters had a tonsillectomy this week. Prior to the surgery we talked with her about what was going to happen that day and why she was going to get so much ice cream afterwards. She’s too young to really understand the science of how anesthesia works, but she did understand the idea […]

Wind Chill and Our Perception of Cold

As I mentioned earlier this week, we’ve had a couple of exceptionally cold days here in Maine this week. One town near me recorded a wind chill of -36F on Tuesday. This weekend is supposed to be just as cold.  I’ve gone ice fishing in similar conditions without moaning about it (at least that’s how […]

Understanding Negative Temperatures

It is a very cold day here in Maine. It’s not the coldest that I’ve experienced in Maine, but it’s still not a pleasant day outside. When I let my dogs out at 5am it was -9F and when I took my daughters to school it was -1F. It was on the way to school […]

What’s the Difference Between Snow, Sleet, and Freezing Rain?

Yesterday it started to sleet during my daughters’ skiing lessons. They didn’t mind and kept right on skiing. But I heard a lot of other parents saying things like, “what the heck? why isn’t this snow? it’s cold enough to be snow!” As an amateur meteorologist I knew the answer was that while the temperature […]

The Science of Winter Olympics Sports

The 2022 Winter Olympics are scheduled to start in a little less than one month from now. I’m looking forward to sitting on my couch and drinking some hot chocolate while watching the world’s best in alpine and nordic skiing. I also enjoy watching curling even though I don’t always understand all of the rules […]

Whiskers and Transcripts

One of the many things that I love about being a dad to two little girls is all of the questions they ask me. Many of their questions are about things that I haven’t thought about in decades. For example, the other night my four-year-old asked about our cat’s whiskers. Specifically, she wanted to know […]

All About Cats and Dogs – A SciShow Kids Compilation

SciShow Kids has produced a lot of fun and educational videos over the last six years. I’ve featured some of those videos in blog posts. Some of my favorite are the videos about animals including those about cats and dogs. In their latest release, SciShow Kids combined some of their previous videos to create one […]

The Suprising Origins of Thanksgiving Foods

Yesterday morning I published blog post in which I shared an ESRI Story Map of where traditional Thanksgiving foods are grown today in the United States. That story map covers where food comes from today, but it doesn’t cover the historical origins of traditional Thanksgiving foods. That’s an interesting topic of its own. It’s Okay […]

The Science of My Favorite Thanksgiving Foods

I don’t think there’s a meal I like better than a classic Thanksgiving turkey with potatoes, squash, stuffing and cranberry sauce from a can (my mouth is watering just thinking about the “shlop” sound the cranberry sauce makes as it pops out of the can). Behind all of that deliciousness is a whole lot of […]

Solving Problems With Simple Machines

A couple of weeks ago one of the most popular posts of the week was A Cute Series of Videos About Engineering. That post was about a SciShow Kids series containing a lesson about what engineers do and two lessons about using engineering to solve problems. This week SciShow Kids released a new video that […]

Three Tools for Adding Must-Answer Questions to Videos

This post was inspired by an old colleague who sent me a note on a couple of days ago seeking some advice about getting his students to watch the videos he shares with them. It’s a topic that I’m asked about fairly regularly so I was happy to suggest a few tools. These are the […]

Questions from my Daughters – What is Frost?

On my phone I keep a list titled “Questions from my Daughters.” Whenever they ask a question that is interesting to them and is one that I haven’t thought about for years, if ever, I add it to the list. This week’s addition to the list came from my four-year-old who asked, “what’s frost?” when […]

A Punny Explanation of Savings Bonds

Last weekend I was talking with a friend about Christmas presents for our kids when I sarcastically said, “just give them savings bonds, that’s what every kid wants.” A day later I was still thinking about that conversation when I wondered if kids even know what a savings bond is. That thought prompted me to […]

A Cute Series of Videos About Engineeering

SciShow Kids recently published series of three videos about engineering. You wouldn’t normally associate engineering with cute, but in this case it’s an appropriate match. Like all SciShow Kids videos these are designed for elementary school students. The presentation of the lesson is made by a person and some puppets with a few still photographs […]

A Short Lesson on the Long History of Electric Cars

The Surprisingly Long History of Electric Cars is a new TED-Ed lesson that should be of interest to anyone who is curious about electric vehicles. The video begins with an explanation of the first electric cars and why they were overtaken by gasoline-powered internal combustion engines. The second half of the video explains the technological, […]

The United Nations Explained for Kids

A couple of weeks ago I discovered CBC Kids News and I shared a great video that explains what the word indigenous means when referring to people. This afternoon I browsed through CBC Kids News again and found a nice animated video that explains the United Nations to kids.  United Nations Explained is a short […]

How to Record an Instructional Video in Wakelet

Wakelet is an excellent tool for creating collections of bookmarks, notes, and files to share with your students. It has has a built-in video creation tool in the form of a Flipgrid integration. That integration allows you to create videos with your webcam, by recording your screen, by recording on a virtual whiteboard, or a […]

What Does Indigenous Mean? – And Why Some States No Longer Celebrate Columbus Day

While I was reviewing videos about Canadian Thanksgiving YouTube displayed a suggested video from CBC Kids News. The video is simply titled The Word Indigenous and it provides an animated explanation of what the word indigenous means when referring to people. The video also does a great job of explaining why the word indigenous is preferrable […]

Short Lessons on Canadian v. American Thanksgiving

Monday is Thanksgiving Day in Canada. It’s about six weeks earlier than it is here in the United States. I’ve celebrated both versions of Thanksgiving and I can tell you that there are a lot of similarities between the two. There are also some differences between them. The following videos provide a humorous look at […]

The Science of Cake! – And 83 Other Food Science Lessons

If you ask my five-year-old what she wants to be when she grows up she’ll say, “a cake maker!” She’s been helping decorate cookies and cakes since before her third birthday. She loves it when we let her watch clips of The Great British Baking Show. That’s why I was excited to come across an […]

Five Helpful YouTube Features for Teachers

YouTube offers a bunch of features that are sometimes overlooked or under-utilized despite being quite helpful when sharing videos in your classroom. In this new video I demonstrate five of those features.  Playlists By default your Google/ YouTube account has a playlist titled “watch later.” That’s a private playlist to which you can save any […]

What Would We Eat on Mars? And Other Fun Science Questions

Long-time followers of my blog have probably noticed that I really like the videos produced by SciShow Kids. Their videos cover a wide range of science topics and almost all of them answer questions that elementary school students are apt to ask. For example, one of the recent releases from SciShow Kids asks, “what would […]

An Easy Way to Find Movie Clips to Include in Your Lessons

ClassHook is a service that I’ve been using and recommending for the last few years. It provides a good way to find clips from movies and television shows to use in your lessons. You can search it according Common Core standard, recommended grade level, and subject area. Recently, ClassHook added another search option. ClassHook’s new […]

A Good Explanation of the Slippery Slope Fallacy

About a month ago I published a collection of resources for teaching students about logical fallacies and cognitive biases. Since then TED-Ed published another good video to add to that collection. The video is Can You Outsmart the Slippery Slope Fallacy? Can You Outsmart the Slippery Slope Fallacy? centers around the Vietnam War and makes […]

The 2021 Fall Foliage Map – And Explanations of Why Leaves Change Colors

The 2021 Fall Foliage Prediction Map is a feature of the SmokyMountains.com website. The map displays a week-by-week prediction of when leaves in the continental United States will be changing colors from now through the end of November. You can see the predictions change by moving the timeline at the bottom of the map. On […]

Blur Faces and Objects in Screencastify Videos

Disclosure: Screencastify is currently an advertiser on my sites.  Earlier this week I published a post about Screencastify’s new feature for adding interactive questions into your videos. That’s not the only new thing that Screencastify offers in its updated video editor. Another great feature is the option to blur faces and objects in your Screencastify […]

How to Build Questions Into Screencastify Videos

Disclosure: Screencastify is currently an advertiser on my sites.  A couple of weeks ago Screencastify announced the launch of some new features in their video editor. One of those new features is the ability to add interactive questions into your videos. You can do this with videos that you record with the Screencastify Chrome extension […]

Resources for Teaching and Learning About Fall

It’s the first day of September and even though Autumn doesn’t really start for a few more weeks, I’m already excited for the arrival of my favorite season of the year. The heat and humidity of summer are gone, the leaves on the trees are the prettiest they’ll be all year, and I’ve always felt […]

Three Short Lessons About Labor Day

Next Monday is Labor Day in the U.S. For most of us it is a three day weekend. It is the traditional “end of summer” in the minds of many of us. If you’re planning to answer questions about Labor Day or teach any lessons about it, here are some short videos to add to […]

Resources to Help Students Recognize Logical Fallacies and Cognitive Biases

Every year as the new school year begins I’m asked for recommendations for helping students improve their ability to discern good information from bad when conducting online research. One of the first recommendations that I always make is help them understand logical fallacies. To that end, I frequently recommend Your Logical Fallacy Is. It is a website […]

An Itchy Science Lesson

Summer here in northern New England brings us long and sunny days that make us forget about the short and frigid days of winter. Those sunny days come with a catch. The catch is blooming poison ivy and biting insects that make us itch. But what really makes us itch? Is there any way to […]

Short Lessons on the Value of Money

Last week TED-Ed published a new video lesson titled Why Can’t Governments Print an Unlimited Amount of Money? The purpose of the video is to explain how governments, particularly the United States federal government, were able to spend trillions of dollars on COVID-19 economic relief programs in the last year. The video explains the role of […]

Narakeet – Quickly Turn Slides into Narrated Video Lessons

A reader recently emailed me looking for advice on how to create narrated video based on slides made in Canva. She didn’t want to record her own voiceover audio. My suggestion was to try using Narakeet to have the slides converted into a narrated video.  Narakeet lets you upload slides and have them converted into […]

How Seashells Are Made – A Lesson for Beachcombers

If your summer plans, like ours, include going to the ocean, you may be interested in this video from Reactions about how seashells are made. In How Seashells Are Made viewers learn that seashells are made of 95% calcium carbonate and 5% protein and sugar. The video doesn’t stop with just listing the components of seashells. […]

Short Lessons on the Science of Fireworks

Independence Day here in the United States is ten days away. Nothing says, “Happy Fourth of July” like a fireworks display. Watching Fourth of July fireworks displays is a quintessential part of the American experience in the summer. This year my daughters are just about old enough to stay up late enough to watch the […]

A Few Short Lessons About the Longest Day of the Year

It is going to be warm and sunny here in Maine today. That temperature will make it feel like summer a few days before the summer solstice. Many refer to the summer solstice as the “longest day of the year” when they really mean “longest period of daylight in a day.” But that’s beside the […]

There, Their, They’re – Reminders for Myself and My Students

On Sunday morning I was writing in a bit of a hurry and failed to notice a mistake in the title of my post about using the netstat command to see the connections a computer is making to external sites and devices. The mistake I made (I’ve since corrected it) was to use “they’re” when […]

A Great Series About Redwoods

The Redwood National park is one of the natural wonders that I hope to share with my daughters in a few years. While the tall trees are the “stars of the show” there is much more to the redwood forest than just the trees. SciShow Kids recently released a series of videos that explain the […]

How Tall Can a LEGO Tower Get? – Life’s Biggest Questions

While getting caught up on my reading in Feedly this morning I came across a new comic from The Oatmeal. The comic addresses the question, “how tall can a LEGO tower get?” (It’s a copyright-protected work so you’ll have to view it on The Oatmeal website). The comic is based on a 2012 BBC article […]

Short Lessons About Memorial Day

Next Monday is Memorial Day. Students often confuse the origin and purpose of Memorial Day with those of Veterans Day. The following videos can help students understand the origins and meanings of Memorial Day and Veterans Day. The Meaning of Memorial Day is a two minute video covering the origins of the holiday in the […]

Three Short Lessons About Algorithms That I Used This Week

This week in my Computer Science Principles course we’re talking about algorithms. We started the week with an introduction answering the question, “what is an algorithm?” Then we looked at examples of algorithms that students encounter on a daily basis (YouTube suggestions being the one they related to the most). Today, my students wrote their […]

All About Plants – Three SciShow Kids Lessons

Spring has finally, fully arrived here in Maine. Our flowers are in full bloom and this weekend we’re putting together garden boxes for growing vegetables. Planting flowers and vegetables is a great way to spark kids’ curiosity and to develop some hands-on learning experiences. If you can’t plant flowers or vegetables with kids, but want […]

Strange Borders – A Geography Lesson

Yesterday afternoon I read an interesting article titled Belgian Farmer Accidentally Moves French Border. The whole story is almost exactly what the title says. A farmer moved a stone that was in his way when plowing a field. It just happened that the stone he moved is a marker for the border between two small […]

48 Videos and a Poster About Critical Thinking and Logical Fallacies

Last week TED-Ed released a new video lesson titled This Tool Will Help You Improve Your Critical Thinking. As I wrote last week, I almost immediately used the lesson in one of my computer science classes. Writing that blog post and using that lesson inspired me to take a look back through my archives for […]

Improving Your Critical Thinking – A New TED-Ed Lesson

This Tool Will Help You Improve Your Critical Thinking is a new TED-Ed lesson that provides viewers with an introduction to the Socratic method. The video has two main purposes. The first is to explain what the Socratic method is. The second is to explain a bit of Socrates’ place in history. The video’s explanation […]

Four Short Lessons About the Arrival of Spring

The snow is melting, the sun is shining a bit longer, and we’re starting to see and hear more birds around our house. Those are all sure signs that spring is on the horizon here in Maine. On that note, here are some short lessons about the arrival of spring.  Why do birds sing? And […]

How Does Artificial Intelligence Learn? – A TED-Ed Lesson I’m Using Today

Every once in a while a new video pops-up at a time that perfectly coincides with where I am in my curriculum. That just happened this morning as I was planning to introduce the role of artificial intelligence in IoT (Internet of Things) to my Comp Tech I students. Yesterday, TED-Ed released a new video […]

Daddy, What Are Hiccups?

My youngest daughter had hiccups twice this week. On Friday morning she asked, “what are hiccups?” Fortunately, I knew the answer. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a great way of explaining involuntary muscle contractions to a three-year-old. I did my best and told her that it’s part of her body’s way of growing and getting stronger […]

How to Share Videos in Google Classroom Without Using YouTube

Earlier this week a friend asked me for some help sharing videos in Google Classroom. He wanted to share videos without having to upload them to YouTube. There are four options for doing that in Google Classroom. I’ve outlined all four in this short video.  As a reminder, if you’re sharing videos that you found […]

How to Embed a Section of a Video Into Canvas Courses

On Friday afternoon I received an email from a reader who was looking for a little help embedding YouTube videos into Canvas. Specifically, this person wanted to know if there was a way to share just a section of video into a course page. Fortunately, YouTube does make this fairly easy to do.  You can […]

A Good Video Series for Introducing Arduino

Earlier this week I shared how I used Tinkercad to introduce my students to key concepts in Arduino design and programming. One of the supplementary materials that I posted in Google Classroom for that course is a series of introductory videos produced by Bob at I Like to Make Stuff.  In a three-part series he […]

Type Studio – A Truly Unique Way to Edit Your Videos

Type Studio is a new video editing tool. When I used it for the first time yesterday I actually said aloud, “Whoa! That’s Awesome!” What made me say that was using the editor to clip a section of video. With video editing tools you have to drag and select a section to delete it or […]

What is a Map? – And a New Crash Course in Geography

For as long as I can remember I’ve enjoyed looking at maps. Whether it’s a standard Mercator projection printed on paper or a digital map, looking at maps sparks curiosity in my brain. I’m certain that’s why I always enjoyed teaching geography and why I spend so much time today teaching others how to use […]

Lava Lamps and Security

Network and data security is something is emphasized throughout the year in my Introduction to Networking course. To spark discussion in the class, I often share show short videos about interesting security incidents as well as short videos about implementing security systems. One of the videos that we watched this week was about Cloudflare’s use […]

Create Video Lessons Without Making Your Own Recordings

As I do every year, I’m taking this week off from writing new blog posts. This week I’ll be re-running a few of the most popular posts in 2020.  In the latest episode of The Practical Ed Tech Podcast I mentioned that EDpuzzle recently updated their user interface and that I was going to make a […]

Five Ways to Make Whiteboard Instructional Videos in Your Web Browser

As I do every year, I’m taking this week off from writing new blog posts. This week I’ll be re-running a few of the most popular posts in 2020.  Over the last few months I’ve written a bunch of blog posts and made a handful of videos on simple ways to make whiteboard instructional videos […]

Fun Facts About Reindeer

My daughters are at the age that they believe in Santa Claus. For weeks they’ve been talking about snacks for Santa and his reindeer. They’re a little too young for this SciShow Kids video about reindeer, but if you have kids who are in elementary school you might want to show them 4 Facts to […]

Five Interesting Lessons About Winter Weather

There is no doubt that winter has arrived here in Maine. The temperature was in the single digits (Fahrenheit) most mornings this week and we had our second significant snow fall this week. The chill in the air and the snow on the ground prompted me to look back at some of my favorite videos […]

A Crash Course in Computer Science

Try as I might, as an old history teacher turned computer science teacher, I can’t help sprinkling in a few history lessons now and then. We talked about the Y2K bug (history to my students all born around 2004/5) a couple of weeks ago. And this week I had some of my students watch Crash […]

TED-Ed Explains the Basics of Stocks and Investing

TED-Ed has released a new lesson that should be of interest to anyone who has hopes of retiring some day. That lesson is titled How Do Investors Choose Stocks? Some of the highlights of the lesson include a basic explanation of what a stock and the stock market is, the differences between active and passive investing […]

Three Thanksgiving Science Lessons

I don’t think there’s a meal I like better than a classic Thanksgiving turkey with potatoes, squash, stuffing and cranberry sauce from a can (my mouth is watering just thinking about the “shlop” sound the cranberry sauce makes as it pops out of the can). Behind all of that deliciousness is a whole lot of […]

Short Lessons on the History of Veterans Day

Veterans Day is this Wednesday. If you find yourself looking for some quick lessons to review with your students tomorrow, here’s a small collection for you.  ReadWorks is one of my favorite places to go when I need information texts about a holiday to share with students. ReadWorks has a good collection of Veterans Day […]

How to Record a Video in PowerPoint (Windows Desktop Version)

A couple of weeks ago I published directions for simultaneously captioning and translating PowerPoint presentations. That’s one of many handy, occasionally overlooked, features that is built into PowerPoint. Video recording is another helpful feature built into PowerPoint.  The built-in video recording tool in PowerPoint let’s you record yourself talking over any and all of your […]

How to Use Vimeo Record to Create and Share Screencasts

Last week Vimeo released a new screen recording tool to use in Google Chrome. That tool is simply called Vimeo Record. While it didn’t do all that well in my comparison of similar screencasting tools, it is rather easy to use and does provide a nice alternative to using YouTube or Google Drive for sharing […]

Learn About Exploration and Compasses by Making Your Own

Today, many of us just use an app on our smart phones when we need to get directions and navigate from point A to point B. Most of our students have never experienced getting directions in any other way. So they may be surprised to learn that we used to use maps and compasses to […]

Five Screencasting Tools Compared and Ranked – Fall 2020

The launch of Vimeo Record earlier this week made me think that perhaps it was time to write a comparison of popular screencasting / screen recording tools. For this comparison I selected the five options that pop into my head whenever I’m asked about screencasting (which has been almost daily since March). With the exception […]

Time to Fall Back – Short Lessons About Daylight Saving Time and Timezones

This weekend we have Halloween and the end of Daylight Saving Time (in most of the U.S. and Canada). Hopefully, my kids will take advantage of the “extra” hour of time for sleeping.  As I do almost every time Daylight Saving Time begins or ends, I have gathered together a handful of short video explanations […]

Five Last Minute Resources for Teaching About the Electoral College

We’re one week away from the U.S. Presidential election. While citizens cast their votes next week, the final selection happens in the Electoral College in December. That’s a concept that can be tricky for some students to understand. If you’re looking for some last minute resources for teaching about the Electoral College, take a look […]

A TED-Ed Lesson Exploring the Pros and Cons of Types of Milk

TED-Ed released a new lesson this week. The lesson is all about milk. The title of the lesson, Which Kind of Milk is Best for You? doesn’t accurately portray the number of lessons and questions that can be raised when students watch the video.  Which Kind of Milk is Best for You? explains the basics […]

How to Make Whiteboard Videos in Wakelet

Wakelet is a tool that become immensely popular in schools in the last few years. A large part of the popularity is due to the many ways that Wakelet can be used. You can use it to host collections of pictures, to share bookmarks, and you can even use it to create instructional videos. That’s […]

Talking Instead of Reading

It has been nearly fifteen years since I first tried my hand at making instructional videos for my students. The first ones were not good. In fact, in response to one of my first attempts I had a student say “Mr. Byrne, please don’t do that again.” But I did try again and again and […]

NASA ScienceCasts Explains the Harvest Moon – It’s Tonight!

Tonight is the night of the annual Harvest Moon in the northern hemisphere. The harvest moon comes on a different evening each year. If the weather is cooperative, tonight will be a great evening to get pictures of the moon rising. I hope that this year is the year I finally get a good one.  […]

Good Video Lessons About Cyberbullying and Digital Privacy

Students in my school district, like students in many other school districts, have more unsupervised time on their hands than ever before. That factor combined with the general “cooped up” feeling that many are having as a result of measures prevent the spread of COVID-19 in our community has led to an increase in cyberbullying […]

Think Like a Coder – The Final Episode!

Last spring my freshmen class enjoyed TED-Ed’s Think Like a Coder series of videos. The final episode of the series was released a few days ago. The last installment is called The World Machine.  The World Machine follows the same format as the previous nine installments of Think Like a Coder. The episode features Ethic […]

MoocNote – Add Quizzes to Existing Videos

MoocNote is a free service that I’ve written about a few times in the past as a tool for collaborative note-taking while watching a video. It is a good service for doing that. Recently, MoocNote expanded to offer tools for adding quiz questions to videos. You can now use MoocNote to add multiple choice, true/false, […]

Using YouTube to Share Lessons This Fall? – Settings and Tools You Need to Know About

This fall many of us are using YouTube more than ever before to share lessons with students. Whether those lessons are ones you recorded or ones that you found YouTube, there are some settings and tools that you should know about.  Settings and Features When Sharing Your Own Video Lessons You can make your videos […]

“Why Do We Have Fall?” – A Post Inspired by My Daughter

  “Why do we have fall?” That was the question that my four year old asked while we were walking in the woods yesterday.  It was a good question (she’s full of good questions these days) and I tried my best to explain that different times of the year have more or less sunlight which […]

Resources for Teaching and Learning About the Colorful Leaves of Fall

 Autumn is my favorite time of year. So much so that I wanted to name my younger daughter Autumn (vetoed by her mother). The crisp air, the smells of apple harvest, the colors of spawning brook trout, and the colors of leaves are just a few things that I enjoy about fall. All that to […]

Three Video Lessons That Are Full of Poop

SciShow Kids has long been one my favorite YouTube channels for elementary school science videos. It went on hiatus for a while then it came roaring back a few weeks ago. One of the new releases on SciShow Kids is all about dung beetles. That, of course, brought out the ten-year-old in me and I […]

Common Craft Explains Disinformation

Common Craft has released a new, timely video for this fall. The new video is Disinformation Explained by Common Craft. The new video explains what a disinformation campaign is and why organizations create them. Equally importantly, the video explains traits of disinformation campaigns and how to people can try to prevent the spread of disinformation. […]

Short Lessons on the History of Labor Day

This coming Monday is Labor Day in the U.S. For most of us it is a three day weekend. It is the traditional “end of summer” in the minds of many of us. If you’re planning to answer questions about Labor Day or teach any lessons about it, here are some short videos to add […]

How to Use Flipgrid With Students Who Don’t Have Email Addresses

Last week I shared a tutorial on how to get started using Flipgrid. That tutorial included the perspective of a teacher and a student. The student perspective that I showed featured a student who has an active email address. It’s important to note that you can use Flipgrid with students who don’t have active email […]

How to Use Google Drive to Comment on Videos

One of the great “hidden” features of Google Drive that is often overlooked is that you can comment on almost any file that you upload to your Google Drive. This includes videos that you upload to Google Drive. That’s exactly what I demonstrate in this new video. Applications for Education As I mentioned in the […]

Every U.S. Presidential Election Through 2012 Explained

Last week I featured a couple of videos about the Electoral College that Keith Hughes produced. Keith has many other excellent videos for U.S. Government and U.S. History students. One set of those videos is Presidential Elections Explained. In that set of videos Keith explains the outcomes and significance of every U.S. Presidential Election through […]

How to Increase the Chances of Your Students Actually Watching Your Instructional Videos

On Friday I gave a couple of presentations at my school about ways to improve the chances that students actually watch the entirety of the videos that we share with them. Some of the ideas that I shared apply to videos that you make and some of the ideas apply to videos that you find […]

The Science of Cycling and the Tour de France

The Tour de France begins tomorrow, about two months after it was scheduled to begin. As an avid cyclist I enjoy watching it and I find that it provides some neat opportunities for science, health, and physical education lessons. Here are some of my go-to resources for teaching and learning about the Tour de France. […]

Getting Started With Flipgrid – Teacher & Student Views

In the last month I’ve shared videos about how to make split screen videos in Flipgrid and how to make whiteboard videos in Flipgrid. It was pointed out to me, in the form of a reader request, that those are great features once you know how to use the basics of Flipgrid. To help people […]

A Handful of Videos to Help Students Understand the Electoral College

You can’t go to a news site today and not see something about the upcoming U.S. Presidential election. When you do go to those sites you’ll often find current polling data about the popularity of a given candidate and or the probability of a candidate winning. Those polls don’t always predict who will win because […]

Tools for Displaying YouTube Videos Without Distractions

On Monday I answered a question from a reader who was looking for some recommendations for tools to show YouTube videos without displaying the “related” content that appears next to and below videos on YouTube. The first two tools that came to mind were Watchkin and SafeShare.tv. Another option is to put the video into […]

How to Create Split Screen Videos in Flipgrid

A couple of weeks ago Flipgrid introduced some new features and product changes for the 2020-21 school year. One of those changes was a slight relocation of the whiteboard recording tool. At the same time a new whiteboard option was added. That option is to have a split screen while recording your whiteboard videos in Flipgrid. […]

How to Create, Share, and Collaborate on YouTube Playlists

As the school year begins you might find yourself looking through a lot of YouTube videos that you’ll share with your students throughout the coming months. Creating playlists on is a great way to organize those videos and share them with your students. Once you’ve created a playlist you can continue to update it to […]

How to Direct Students to Videos Based on Answer Choices in Google Forms

This morning I answered an email from a reader who wanted to know if there was an easy way to direct students to videos based on how they answered her quiz questions. My answer was to make the quiz in Google Forms and use the built-in answer feedback option to include videos. I made the […]

How to Make a Whiteboard Video in Flipgrid

Last week Flipgrid introduced a bunch of updates and changes. If you haven’t logged into your Flipgrid account since the end of the last school year, you might find some things have changed since you last used Flipgrid. The updates and changes made last week didn’t eliminate any features. The updates and changes did move […]

SciShow Kids Returns Next Week!

A little over a year ago SciShow Kids, one of my favorite YouTube channels, announced a hiatus. I thought that was going to be then end of the channel. Much to my surprise this afternoon I saw an update from the channel announcing its return. SciShow Kids returns next week with new videos for elementary […]

Three Lessons on the Chemistry of Coffee

One of the things that I’ve missed the most over the last few months is going to my local coffee shop (Cafe Nomad) and having some of the excellent coffee that they brew. Try as I might, the coffee I brew at home just isn’t the same quality of what they make at the cafe. […]

5 Ways to Make Whiteboard Instructional Videos in Your Web Browser

Over the last few months I’ve written a bunch of blog posts and made a handful of videos on simple ways to make whiteboard instructional videos in your web browser. These have been popular, in part, because this style of video can be made using tools that are readily available to Chromebook users. As a […]

Video: The Solar System to Scale

I guess I’ve been a bit of a space kick lately as over the weekend I shared an augmented reality app about spacecraft and yesterday I featured the NASA selfies app. This morning I found an interesting video about creating a true-to-scale model of the solar system. The video is titled To Scale: The Solar […]

Short Lessons About the Longest Day of the Year

It is going to be over 90F here in Maine today. That temperature will make it feel like summer a few days before the summer solstice. Many refer to the summer solstice as the “longest day of the year” when they really mean “longest period of daylight in a day.” But that’s beside the point […]

A Few Basic Settings to Know When Uploading to YouTube

This past semester I created and uploaded to YouTube more videos for students than I ever have before. Based on the number of questions that I answered on that topic, I know I’m not the only one. And depending on how school starts in the fall, there may be many more teachers tan ever before […]

How to Make Whiteboard Videos on Your Chromebook – Updated

About two months ago I published a post featuring three ways to make a whiteboard video on a Chromebook. Since then I’ve created a couple more tutorials on that same topic. Here’s an updated set of tutorials on how to make whiteboard videos with browser-based tools that work on Chromebooks. #1 – Make a Whiteboard […]

Why Should You Read Moby Dick – A New TED-Ed Lesson

A couple of years ago TED-Ed started producing a series of video lessons titled Why Should You Read… The videos in the series feature classic works of literature explained in about five minutes. The videos are more high level overviews of the books than they are book trailers. What I like best about the videos […]

Updated – How to Use EDpuzzle to Create Video Lessons

In my previous post I wrote about and included a video about adding timestamps to longer videos that you post on your YouTube channel. Rather than just talk about it, I took my own advice and added timestamps to one of my longest and most popular videos of the last few months. That video is […]

A Handful of Video Lessons About Memorial Day

This is Memorial Day weekend here in the United States. Monday is actually Memorial Day. Students often confuse the origin and purpose of Memorial Day with those of Veterans Day. The following videos can help students understand the origins and meanings of Memorial Day and Veterans Day. The Meaning of Memorial Day is a two […]

5 Easy Ways to Improve Your Videos

Many of us are making more videos than ever before as a way to deliver instruction and or to simply keep our students updated about school. With time and practice you might become adept at using the editing functions in your favorite video software. You can also improve your videos without having to learn a […]

What’s Inside Your Computer – Three Introductory Lessons from TED-Ed

Much like cars, many of us use computers without knowing what really makes them go. And much like cars you don’t have to know what makes your computer run, but it can certainly be helpful to know the basics in order to make informed decisions about them. Of course, if you want to attempt to […]

Facts v. Opinions – A New Common Craft Lesson

Now more than ever our students are getting bombarded with information and opinions in all forms of media. Therefore, it’s more important than ever that we help them recognize the differences between facts and opinions. Common Craft recently released a new video that can help students understand the differences between facts and opinions. Facts and […]

How to Share Your Videos in Google Classroom – With and Without YouTube

A lot of teachers are making their own instructional videos for the first time. Whether you make them using screencasting tools, by converting slides into videos, or by just using the camera on your Chromebook, you’re going to need a way to share your videos with your students. In this post you’ll see a few […]

Lessons About Income Taxes

In most years today would be the deadline for Americans to file their income tax returns. This year that deadline has been extended to July 15th because of the COVID-19 pandemic. I already had these resources ready to go for this week so I’m going to share them now rather than wait until July. What […]

Now You Can Use Flipgrid to Make Screencast Videos

On Wednesday afternoon Flipgrid announced the launch of a new recording feature for teachers and students. You can now create screencast videos within Flipgrid. The feature is kind of hidden so I made a screencast video to show you where Flipgrid’s screen recording tool is found and how it works. As I demonstrate in the […]

Create Video-based Lessons a Little Faster With This Chrome Extension

A couple of weeks ago when I got the notice that my school would be closing I made a video about how to use EDpuzzle to create video-based lessons without having to create your own recordings. I first shared it with my colleagues and then included it in my Practical Ed Tech newsletter. One thing […]

A Great Series for Introducing or Reviewing Arduino Programming Concepts

Arduino programming was one of the things that we were really starting to get rolling on just before school closed. Now that my school is closed and we’re doing remote teaching and learning, I’m using EDpuzzle to create review activities for my students. This week I used EDpuzzle to create lessons based on a great […]

How to Create Video Lessons Without Making Your Own Recordings

In the latest episode of The Practical Ed Tech Podcast I mentioned that EDpuzzle recently updated their user interface and that I was going to make a video about it. Well I started to make a video just about the updated UI then realized that I could help more teachers right now by making a complete […]

How to Use Watch2Gether to Host Live Online Discussion About Shared Videos

As I wrote on Saturday, Watch2gether is a nice tool to use to have students share observations, ask questions, and answer questions while watching video clips in your classroom or as part of a flipped lesson they’re completing at home. The service is free to use and doesn’t require registration in order for you or […]

Watch2Gether – Host Live Online Discussion About Shared Videos

Watch2Gether is a service for sharing videos that I’ve used off and on since 2011. When I first started using it you could share YouTube videos and host live chats about those videos on the same page. Over the years it has expanded to offer support for using videos from Vimeo, Facebook, Instagram, and half […]

How to Annotate Videos With Timelinely

Timelinely is a free service for adding annotations to YouTube videos. You can use Timelinely to add text, image, and video annotations to any public YouTube video. After you have added your annotations to a video you can share the annotated version with anyone much like you would share any other video. You can share […]

Volcanoes 101 – Updated

A few years ago National Geographic published a video titled Volcanoes 101. Last month they published a new video with the same name. The new Volcanoes 101 explains the types of volcanoes, their shapes, common locations, and what causes volcanoes to erupt. On a related note, The BBC has a series of interactive guides that explain how […]

DNS & IP Explained

One of the things that quickly became clear when I started teaching an introduction to computer science course for high school freshmen was that while they are happy to use the Internet, they don’t really understand how the Internet works. I suppose the same can be said for lots of adults too. The Domain Name […]

The Electoral College Explained by Common Craft

We still have a long way to go in the party primary and caucuses before the Democratic nominee for President will be chosen. And then we have even longer until we go to the polls to choose a President of the United States. And a President is finally elected through the Electoral College. How the […]

A Great Set of Videos for Teaching Networking and Computer Hardware Concepts

As some of you know, I took over a computer science program at my local vocational/ technical high school this year. It has been fun and, at times, has made me feel like a brand new teacher again. When I took the job I told my director that I’d be fine with the programming side […]

Algorithms Explained by Common Craft

This week in my ninth grade computer science principles class we started talking about big data and algorithms. One of the resources that I used in introducing this topic was Common Craft’s explanation of algorithms. The two and a half minute video explains what an algorithm is and the roles that algorithms can play in […]

Four Interesting Lessons About Winter Weather

When I got up to let my dogs out yesterday morning it was a brisk -10f with the windchill. When I got in my car an hour later the thermometer had reached a balmy 4f. The chill in the air prompted me to look back at some of my favorite videos for learning about winter […]

Why Should You Read Lord of the Flies – A New TED-Ed Lesson

Why You Should Read Lord of the Flies is the latest video added to TED-Ed’s “why should you read…” series. There are now more than thirty videos in that series. Why You Should Read Lord of the Flies follows the same pattern as the other videos in the series. The video covers the major plot […]

How to Adjust the Captions on YouTube Videos

This week’s Practical Ed Tech newsletter featured a few things that we can do to improve the accessibility of the slides and videos that we use in our classrooms. One of those things is to turn on the captions when playing a YouTube video in class. Another is to create a transcript of the YouTube […]

VidReader – Create Searchable Transcripts of YouTube Videos

A couple of weeks ago I published a blog post and a video about a neat service called SnackVids. SnackVids has since been rebranded as VidReader. With its new name VidReader does the same thing that SnackVids did. That thing is create a searchable transcript of any YouTube video that is narrated in English. As you’ll […]

Book Review Videos Made in the Common Craft Style

Years ago I came across a video in which someone reviewed The Art of Explanation by making a video in the Common Craft style. The Art of Explanation is a book that was written by Lee LeFever who is the voice behind all of the Common Craft videos. The producer of the video, Bruce Herwig, wrote a blog […]

Creative Bridge – A Next Vista for Learning Video Contest

I have been a fan and supporter of Next Vista for Learning for the last decade. Next Vista is a video site for students and teachers to share video lessons with other students and teachers. Videos submitted to Next Vista are reviewed for accuracy before they appear on the site. Speaking of videos on the […]

How to Create Whiteboard Videos in Wakelet Collections

A couple of months ago Flipgrid introduced a new feature that enables you to create whiteboard-style instructional videos to share with your students. That feature is called Flipgrid Shorts. Wakelet has integrated the Flipgrid camera into their service so that now you can create whiteboard-style instructional videos directly within your Wakelet collections. Watch my video below […]

SnackVids – Automatic Creation of Searchable Video Transcripts

Update January 2021: The tool mentioned in this article is no longer available. However, you can accomplish the same goal of making a transcript of YouTube videos by following the directions I’ve outlined in this video.  SnackVids is a new service that will generate a searchable transcript for any YouTube video of your choosing. To […]

ClassHook Adds Live Discussions for Video Lessons

Last Friday on the Practical Ed Tech Podcast I mentioned that ClassHook has a new feature for facilitating discussions about the videos that you show to your students. The new feature is called Live Discussions and it builds upon the popular Pause Prompts feature that ClassHook introduced earlier this year. Pause Prompts are timestamped questions […]

A Few Short Lessons About Labor Day

Today is Labor Day in the U.S. This is the traditional “end of summer” in the minds of many of us. After this weekend nearly all students and teachers will be back in school. If you’re already back in school, you and your students should have enjoyed the three day weekend. Tomorrow you may have […]

These Cool Cats Will Teach You About Phrasal Verbs

Phrasal Verbs Friends is a fun YouTube channel that features cats explaining phrasal verbs. The videos use pictures of cats in green-screen settings to show and explain the various meanings of phrasal verbs like “warm up” and “take care.” Applications for Education Phrasal verbs can be tricky for students to understand. These cute cat videos […]

ClassHook Gets a New Look

ClassHook is a service that I recommend trying when you’re looking for video clips to illustrate a concept and don’t want just another “how to” video. ClassHook provides a search tool for finding clips from well-known television shows and movies to be used in your lessons. You can search according to topic, standard, grade level, […]

Why Do Whales Sing? – A Lesson Prompted by My Daughters

As you may know, I have two toddler-age daughters. So as you might guess, our bathtub is full of bath toys. One of those toys is a water scoop that is made to look like a whale. Tonight, during bath time my oldest asked, “what’s a whale say?” Not being able to make a whale […]

Three Good Resources for Shark Week

This Sunday is the start of Discovery’s annual Shark Week. A couple of weeks ago I shared SciShow Kids’ Super Sharks lesson. That’s a nice lesson for elementary school students. If you’re looking for something for older students, take a look at the following resources. The Global Fishing Watch map includes an animated layer that displays the […]

A Super Shark Lesson for Kids for Shark Week

Every summer Discovery runs a week of programming all about sharks. They call it Shark Week and it usually has some interesting content even if it is a bit sensationalized. That said, my daughters won’t be watching it with me and I don’t recommend it for other young children. But if you are looking for […]

How to Create a Green Screen Video in iMovie

Creating green screen videos is be a fun way for students to share what they’ve learned through research about a place or event. Making green screen videos is also a great way for kids to make their own weather forecast and newscast videos. Through the use of green screen editing students can virtually appear in […]

Eight TED-Ed Lessons for Music Appreciation

One of my favorite extra-curricular activities in elementary school was learning to play the violin and the trumpet. Three+ decades later I can still read music. I’m looking forward to my daughters being old enough to learn to read and play music too. Thinking about that reminded me of a TED-Ed lesson that I found […]

Deserts 101 – A Nice Nat Geo Lesson

National Geographic offers a good series of more than one hundred YouTube videos designed to provide viewers with concise explanations of the big concepts of a variety of topics in science. The series includes videos about volcanoes, plastics creation and recycling, the solar system, and invasive species. The latest video added to the National Geographic […]

Lessons on the Science of Fireworks

The Fourth of July is Independence Day here in the United States. And nothing says, “Happy Fourth of July” like a fireworks display. Watching Fourth of July fireworks displays is a quintessential part of the American experience in the summer. I’m looking forward to the day when my daughters will be old enough to stay […]

Three Short Lessons About American Independence Day

American Independence Day, the Fourth of July, is this week. I realize that most of you reading this aren’t in school right now, but I thought I’d share a few video lessons about the Declaration of Independence the celebration of Independence Day. Bookmark these for your lessons when school resumes in the fall. History offers […]

Why Should You Read Hamlet – A New TED-Ed Lesson

Last year TED-Ed started publishing a series of video lessons titled Why Should You Read…? Each lesson is about a classic work of literature that many of us have read and have made our students read. When making our students read those classics we’ve all been asked, “why do we have to read this?” This […]

A Brief History of Yellowstone – A Video Your Students Could Easily Create

National Geographic recently published a new video titled A Brief History of Yellowstone. The video hits almost all of the key points in the history of Yellowstone becoming the first national park in the U.S. Unfortunately, the video isn’t terribly interesting to watch. That’s a statement coming from a person who will watch PBS documentaries […]

Two Lessons About Invasive Species and the Threats They Pose

My favorite bike training ride goes through a portion of the White Mountains National Forest on the Maine-New Hampshire border. As you enter the forest you’ll see reminders about not bringing in firewood from outside of the area. The reason for the reminders is to prevent the spread of invasive insects that can damage the […]

66 Lessons on the Chemistry of Food and Beverages

Reactions is a YouTube channel that I’ve mentioned in a handful of posts in the past. The channel is produced by PBS Digital Studios and the American Chemical Society. All of the videos on the channel include chemistry lessons based on ordinary, everyday parts of life like food and beverages. In fact, Reactions has a […]

This is Clickbait – A Lesson on Being a Discerning News Consumer

A couple of weeks ago TED-Ed released a video about spotting misleading headlines. I quickly added that lesson to my list of resources for helping students become discerning news consumers. This week TED-Ed released another video that I’m adding to that list of resources. This One Weird Trick Will Help You Spot Clickbait is a […]

ClassHook Adds Pause Prompts to Personal Clips

ClassHook is one of my favorite alternatives to searching on YouTube for educational videos. A few months ago ClassHook added a feature called Pause Prompts that enables you to add discussion questions to the videos that you find through their site. Then last month ClassHook added a new playlist feature called Personal Clips. As of […]

Educational and Moving Memorial Day Videos

Tomorrow is Memorial Day here in the United States. Students often confuse the origin and purpose of Memorial Day with those of Veterans Day. The following videos can help students understand the origins and meanings of Memorial Day and Veterans Day. The Meaning of Memorial Day is a two minute video covering the origins of […]

Common Craft Explains URLs

We enter URLs into our web browsers every day, but have you ever wondered what all the parts of those URLs mean? The URL can give us information about the type of website we’re visiting, the security of the site, when a page was created, and much more. What’s in a URL is the topic […]

5 Ways for Students of All Ages to Make Animated Videos

Making animated videos is a great way for students to bring their written stories to life on screen. Those could be fiction or nonfiction stories. Some nonfiction animated video topics include making a video to illustrate a historical event, making biographies, and explaining complex concepts in simple animations like Common Craft does. In the fiction […]

ClassHook Offers a New Way to Organize Educational Videos

ClassHook is quickly becoming one my favorite tools for teaching with video clips. In fact, I recently included ClassHook’s Pause Prompts feature in my Best of the Web presentation at the Texas Library Association’s annual conference. ClassHook recently added another convenient feature for teachers. ClassHook’s latest feature is one they’re calling Personal Clips. Personal Clips […]

Five Resources for Teaching & Learning About Mount Everest

April and May is the peak of the climbing season in the Himalaya Mountains. In May many mountaineers will be making their summit attempts on Mount Everest. Long-time readers of this blog may recall, one of my bucket list items is seeing Mount Everest in person. Until then I have to entertain myself with books, […]

How to Create Video-based Lessons

Earlier today I answering a question about uploading videos to EDpuzzle when I realized that I haven’t made a complete tutorial video on how to use EDpuzzle since its design was updated. My previous videos about the service are all a few years old and while the functions are largely the same, the layout has […]

What Makes Birds Different Colors? – A Nice Lesson for Spring

The birds are starting to return here in northern New England. It’s always nice to hear the first birds of the spring chirping away early in the morning after a long winter of silence early in the morning. I always like seeing orioles return. Orioles bring a nice splash of color to what is otherwise […]

Questions to Ask When Planning a Classroom Video Project

Making videos can be a great way to get students excited and invested in the process of researching a topic and presenting their findings for others to see. But before you dive headlong into a video project with your students take some time consider the following questions as you plan the project. *Planning questions to […]

How to Make Interactive Videos

For many years I helped teachers and students use YouTube’s annotations tool to create series of interactive or choose-your-own-adventure videos. Unfortunately, YouTube discontinued that service about eighteen months ago. This week a reader contacted me for a recommendation on other ways to make interactive videos. My suggestion was to try using Thinglink’s video editor. Thinglink […]

How to Use BoClips to Find and Share Great Educational Videos

Back in January I discovered BoClips while walking around the BETT Show in London. It’s an educational video hosting site that has quickly become one of my go-to resources. In fact, I like it so much that I now include it in my Best of the Web presentation. BoClips offers more than two million videos […]

Six Good Lessons About Man’s Best Friend

As long-time readers of this blog know, I love dogs. Small dogs, big dogs, skinny dogs, and fat dogs, I love them all. And I have a particularly soft spot for older dogs in shelters (I’ve adopted three in the last decade). So it was with much interest that I watched the latest TED-Ed lesson […]

Lessons About the Making of Maple Syrup

Today is Maple Syrup Sunday here in Maine. This is always a welcome sign of spring. The method of collecting sap from maple trees has changed a bit over the years, but the concept of boiling sap to make syrup remains unchanged. In the following videos you’ll see the traditional collection method and the modern […]

From Basic to Advanced Video Projects for Almost Every Classroom

My last presentation of the day the 2019 MACUL Conference was 5 Video Projects for Almost Every Classroom. Before the presentation started I introduced those who came early to cell phone crashing. 5 Video Projects for Almost Every Classroom is a progression of easy to difficult projects that can be adapted for use in almost […]

Short Lessons for the Arrival of Spring

The first chickadees and ducks of the spring have started to arrive in my neighborhood. Aside from the calendar, hearing the birds reminds us all that spring is almost here. If you’re tired of winter and looking for some spring-themed lesson ideas, take a look at the following resources. Last year The New York Times published an animated […]

The Science of Surfing

The Physics of Surfing is a new TED-Ed lesson that was released this morning. The short lesson explains how waves are formed, why they get bigger as they approach shore, and the geological influences that make waves bigger in some areas than others. The lesson also covers how surfboard shapes affect the way surfers ride […]

A Great Series of Cyber Safety Videos for Students

This morning someone asked me for a recommendation for some good resources to help students learn cyber safety lessons. The first thing that came to mind was Planet Nutshell’s Net Safe series. Planet Nutshell’s Net Safe series has eighteen episodes covering topics like protecting personal information, responsible posting of pictures, and mobile location privacy. The videos are […]

The Spanish-American War Animated

This post is a long overdue shout-out to MrBettsClass. Mr. Betts produces engaging animated history videos for students. In contrast to the deep-dives that Tom Richey does for AP history students, the videos on MrBettsClass are more general overviews of topics in U.S. History. Take a look at the recent Spanish-American War animated video from […]

Tom Richey Explains Tariffs

Tom Richey’s YouTube channel is a must-subscribe for AP history (European and U.S.) students and their teachers. He regularly posts engaging lectures about a wide variety of topics in that are integral to developing an advanced understanding of European and U.S. History. He also hosts live review sessions on his YouTube channel. Tom’s latest video […]

How to Use ClassHook’s New Pause Prompts Feature

ClassHook recently added a great feature to their educational video service. That feature is called Pause Prompts. Pause Prompts are short questions or discussion prompts that you build into the video clips that you plan to display in your classroom. When you play a video in your classroom the video will automatically pause and display […]

ClassHook’s Pause Prompts Let You Add Questions to Existing Videos

ClassHook is a great service for finding video clips to use in your classroom. ClassHook clips come from well-known movies and television shows. You can search for those clips according to subject area and topic. Earlier this month ClassHook introduced a new feature called Pause Prompts. Pause Prompts are questions that pop-up and pause a […]

What’s the Difference Between England, Great Britain, and United Kingdom?

Since I’ve just returned from a trip to London, I figure it’s a good time to revisit one of my favorite geography videos. That video is The Difference between the United Kingdom, Great Britain and England Explained. The video explains name refers to, the differences between the three, and why some people incorrectly use them […]

Boclips – Millions of Ad-free Educational Videos

Today at the BETT Show Bethany Beaudrie introduced me to a new educational video provider called Boclips for Teachers. Boclips hosts more than two million educational videos from more than 100 vetted video producers. You’ll probably recognize many of the names in the list of videos producers. Two of the producers that I noticed right […]

Sun, Moon, and Planets 101

National Geographic’s YouTube channel has an excellent playlist that is titled National Geographic 101. As you might guess, the playlist is full of short overviews of the basics of a wide variety of topics in science and geography. In National Geographic 101 you will find short videos about Jupiter, Venus, Saturn, Earth, Mercury, Mars, Pluto, […]

What’s Inside of Buckingham Palace and the White House?

Yesterday, while looking for something completely unrelated I stumbled upon two excellent videos produced by Jared Owen. The videos, What’s Inside of Buckingham Palace? and What’s Inside the White House? use CGI models of both buildings to take viewers inside each building. As you can see in the videos above, viewers are taken beyond what one […]

Terrible Passwords, Password Security, and Protecting Your Online Account

Last week Splash Data revealed their annual list of worst passwords of the year. Many of those passwords will not be a surprise. Using “123456” and common words or names as your password is always a terrible idea. We all know that it is a terrible idea yet we all know someone who uses terrible […]

A Couple of Thoughts About Flipgrid Stickers

A couple of weeks ago I was at a conference to present on the topic of formative assessment. Flipgrid was one of the tools that I mentioned in my presentation. After my presentation a nice woman asked me for my thoughts about the stickers and drawings that kids can add to their Flipgrid videos. She […]

TED-Ed Adds More Videos to the “Why Should You Read…” Series

About six weeks ago I published a post about TED-Ed’s series of videos that explain why students should read the classics. When I published that post there were five videos in the series. The series is now up to seven videos. Those videos are listed and embedded below. Why Should You Read MacBeth? Why Should […]

How to Upload Videos to Reply to Flipgrid Topics

I love Flipgrid for the ease with which students can record videos with their webcams to reply to prompts that you give them. But not every student likes to appear on camera. And not every Flipgrid topic has to be a free-form response. It is in those instances that your students can use the option […]

Federal Land vs. State Land

As I write this What is Federal Land? is the #49 trending video on YouTube. It’s nice to see an educational video trending that high on YouTube. The video was produced by CGP Grey who has produced some other fantastic educational videos over the years. Through What is Federal Land? viewers can learn how land in […]

How to Use Guest Mode in Flipgrid

A few weeks ago Flipgrid added a new feature called Guest Mode. Guest Mode allows you to give parents access to view a specific topic within a Flipgrid grid. Guest Mode also provides the option for parents to record a video to be added to a specific topic within a Flipgrid grid. Watch my following […]

What If You Stopped Sleeping? – Video Lesson

As the parent of a two year old and a one year old I know a thing or two about operating on little sleep. There are times when I wonder if I’ll ever get a full night’s sleep again. Which begs the question, “what if I stopped sleeping?” That question is the focus of an […]

The Origins of Ingredients in Thanksgiving Meals

Last week I shared three Thanksgiving-themed projects that you can do this month. Of course, I have many more Thanksgiving resources bookmarked to share with you. One of those is an interesting video from It’s Okay to be Smart titled The Surprising Origins of Thanksgiving Foods. Through the video students can learn how the most […]

Two Good Video Explanations of Fair Use

Less than an hour after I posted this chart of alternatives to Google Image search I had two emails and one Facebook message with questions about fair use. One asked about music, the others asked about exceptions to copyright. But really all three messages were essentially asking the same theme of “what about fair use?” […]

An Easy Way to Create Your Own Captioned Flipped Video Lessons

Two weeks ago I published a video about how to use the automatic captioning feature in Google Slides. A lot of people have asked if there is a way to download the captions that are automatically generated when you speak while presenting your slides. Unfortunately, there isn’t a downloadable transcript of the captions. However, you […]

TED-Ed Explains Why Students Should Read Classics

A few weeks ago TED-Ed published a lesson titled Why Should You Read Edgar Allan Poe? It now appears that lesson was the first in a series of lessons designed to explain and encourage students to read some classics. Since the Poe lesson was published TED-Ed has published similar lessons about Don Quixote, Waiting for […]

Common Craft Releases Its 101st Explainer Video

This week Common Craft published their 101st explainer video. The latest video is about understanding terms of service agreements on websites and apps. Like nearly all Common Craft videos Terms of Service Agreements begins with an analog example before transitioning to the digital application of that example. In this case the analog example is signing […]

60 Second Adventures in Religion – Animated Explanations

Some days I scroll through Feedly or Facebook and come across things that immediately make me think of a current or former colleague. That is exactly what happened when I saw the Open University’s 60 Second Adventures in Religion videos. I’m quite sure that my former colleague Bree will be interested in using these videos as […]

Eight Options for Creating Screencasts on Chromebooks

Recording screencasts is one relatively easy way to get started making videos in your classroom. Today, I helped some middle school students make screencasts in which they explained the animations they made to represent forms of energy. Those students used Screencastify on their Chromebooks to make their videos. But Screencastify isn’t the only screencasting tool […]

The 90-Second Newbery Film Festival – Videos Based on Newbery Winning Books

Thanks to one of the great teachers that I am working with at Sigsbee Charter School I learned about the 90-Second Newbery Film Festival. The festival is really a contest that is organized by YA author James Kennedy.  The purpose of the contest is to encourage students to create short videos based on Newbery-winning books. […]

Happy Thanksgiving!

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving in Canada. As an American I was relatively ignorant of this holiday until about six years ago. If you’re an American or your just generally curious about the differences and similarities between American and Canadian Thanksgiving, watch the following videos. Both of the following humorous videos that explain the differences between Thanksgiving […]

ytCropper – Share a Section of a YouTube Video

This week I answered an email from someone who had read my article 10 Tools for Teaching With YouTube Videos and wanted to know if there was a tool for sharing just a portion of a YouTube video. I used to recommend TubeChop but while that tool is still online it doesn’t consistently work as […]

Ten Tools for Teaching With YouTube Videos

If you can get past the distraction of cute animal videos, video game highlights, and other nonsense, you can find excellent educational videos on YouTube. But even then it’s not enough to just share the video with your students either in your classroom or online. When sharing videos with students in an online format, add […]

Frostbite Theater – 87 Science Experiment Video Lessons

Jefferson Lab’s YouTube channel includes a playlist titled Frostbite Theater. The first time I looked at the playlist a few years ago it had about fifty videos. The playlist has now expanded to 87 videos. The playlist features videos of science demonstrations and experiments. Many of the demonstrations involve the use of liquid nitrogen. You’ll also find […]

Why Should You Read Poe? – A TED-Ed Lesson

Halloween is a little more than a month away. It is during these next five weeks that a lot of students will be introduced to the work of Edgar Allan Poe. A new TED-Ed lesson examines what made Poe’s macabre work timeless classics. In Why Should You Read Edgar Allan Poe? students can learn about […]

Three Lessons About Why Leaves Change Color

Every autumn people tour Maine just to see the leaves changing color. Seeing the leaves change is one of my favorite things about the fall too. Here are three good videos that explain why leaves change color in the fall. Untamed Science offers a good, partially animated, explanation of why leaves change colors, what produces the colors, and […]

Making Sense of Spelling – A TED-Ed Lesson

The Vox video about why we say “OK” raises the question of whether you should write “OK,” “okay,” or “O.K.” That’s just one of many tricky aspects of spelling in English. The TED-Ed video Making Sense of Spelling explains why some words are spelled the way they are and why some words have multiple spellings. […]

Why We Say “OK” – And Other Lessons on the Origins of Words

A few days ago Vox published a short video that explains the origins of “OK” and how it came to be something that we say, read, and click everyday. By watching the video you can learn where OK originated and the roles of a presidential campaign, the telegraph, and railroads in spreading the use of […]

Bookmark It – A Tool for Adding Bookmarks to a Video’s Timeline

Bookmark It is a free Chrome extension that can solve a problem many people face when trying to show students just a specific part of a video. That problem is having to scroll along the timeline of a YouTube video to find the spot that you want to share. Bookmark It lets you add timestamped […]

Video Resources for Constitution Day

Constitution Day in the United States is on this coming Monday. By law all schools receiving federal funds have to offer some type of instruction about the Constitution. Yesterday, I shared a couple of interactive resources that can help students learn about the U.S. Constitution. Here are a couple of video resources for teaching and […]

The Process of Plastic Bottle Recycling

I have t-shirts made from recycled plastic bottles and I bet that your students do too. How did those bottles become the material for t-shirts? Why didn’t the recycling company just make more bottles out of the recycled bottles? And why are those numbers on the bottom of the bottle important? Those questions and more […]

Three Short Lessons About the Origins of Labor Day

This weekend, Labor Day weekend, is the unofficial end of summer. After this weekend nearly all students and teachers will be back in school. If you’re already back in school, you and your students are probably looking forward to the three day weekend. Before you start the three day weekend, take a few minutes to […]

A Science Lesson for Dog Owners

As regular readers of this blog know, I love dogs. But as much as I love them there is one habit that I wish “man’s best friend” would kick. That habit is eating poop. Whether its from a deer, a moose, a horse, or any other mammal, my dogs have had time not scooping up […]

How Submarines Work

SciShow Kids is one of my favorite YouTube channels for kids. SciShow Kids publishes a steady stream of science lessons for elementary school students. The latest video lesson from SciShow Kids is all about how submarines work. The video does a nice job of covering the basics of how submarines are sunk and how they […]

5 Ways to Display YouTube in Class Without “Related” Content

One of the questions that I’m frequently asked at the beginning of the school year goes something like this, “do you know how I can download videos from YouTube?” I do know how to do that, but I won’t teach you how to do that because it is a violation of YouTube’s terms of service. […]

How Does Air Conditioning Work? – A Lesson for the Dog Days of Summer

Here in northern New England we don’t handle hot and humid weather well. The first heat wave of the summer always sends people scrambling to buy the few air conditioners that are in stock at Home Depot or Walmart. In fact, I was one of those scramblers a couple of weeks ago. This leads me […]

82 Math in Real Life Lessons

Years ago TED-Ed started a playlist of video lessons called Math in Real Life. That playlist that started out with just a couple dozen lessons has now grown to include 82 lessons. The “real life” context in these lessons isn’t things like “how calculating percentages helps you be a frugal shopper.” The “real life” context […]

A Lesson for Beachcombers – How Seashells Are Made

If your summer plans include going to the beach, you may be interested in a new video from Reactions about how seashells are made. In How Seashells Are Made viewers learn that seashells are made of 95% calcium carbonate and 5% protein and sugar. The video doesn’t stop with just listing the components of seashells. […]

4 Fun Summer Science Activities

Now that summer is here in the northern hemisphere it’s a great time to go outside for a science lesson. SciShow Kids has four suggestions for outdoor science lessons. In Fun Summer Science adults and children can learn about the science of bubbles, kites, ice cream, and solar energy. Each segment includes an explanation of […]

Huge Flipgrid News! – All Features Now Free

Flipgrid has been acquired by Microsoft. That’s good news for the founders of Flipgrid and great news for all of us who enjoy using Flipgrid. As of this morning all Flipgrid features are now free for all users! If you are a person who paid for a Flipgrid Pro account, you’ll be getting a prorated […]

Why Do We Itch? – A Science Lesson

Summer here in northern New England brings long and sunny days that make us forget about the short and frigid days of winter. Those sunny days come with a catch. That catch is blooming poison ivy and biting insects that make us itch. But what really makes us itch? Is there any way to avoid […]

New Common Craft Video – Digital Footprints Explained

As adults we know that everything we do online is a part of our digital footprints. Even those things that you post on your “private” Facebook or Instagram account are public because they’re just a screenshot away from being shared outside of your private circle. This is a lesson that every student should learn without […]

11,000 People Get Their Ed Tech Tips Here

A few times a week I create new how-to videos on a wide range of tools and topics related to educational technology. Some recent topics include making animated videos, making virtual reality tours, and time-saving tips for Google Forms users. All of my videos are published to my YouTube channel which now has more than […]

The Life of a City – Early Silent Films of New York City

The Library of Congress has some neat playlists on YouTube that history teachers should explore. One of those playlists is titled The Life of a City: Early Films of New York. This playlist includes 24 silent film clips of events like the opening of the East River bridge, Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Parade, and the […]

How Coffee Affects Your Brain

Like millions of people, I start my day by brewing coffee. On those rare days when I discover we’re out of coffee at home, it can totally throw my morning out of wack. Heck, I even pick hotel rooms based on whether or not they have in-room coffee makers. In other words, I’m addicted to […]

New TED-Ed Lesson – What Causes Constipation?

In late March TED-Ed answered “why isn’t the world covered in poop?” Last week they published a lesson answering the related question, “what causes constipation?“ What Causes Constipation? teaches viewers about the roles of the large intestine and pelvic floor muscles in the process of expelling stool. The lesson also teaches viewers about the dietary […]

The Science of Spring!

Here in Maine it finally has felt like spring for the entire week. We’ve had hot and sunny days as well as warm and rainy days. In other words, lawns are starting to look green. This is a great time to share a new SciShow Kids video that covers a handful of topics related to […]

TED-Ed Lessons About Every Element on the Periodic Table

For years I have referred readers to the University of Nottingham’s Periodic Table of Videos. That table provides a video about every element that is in the Periodic Table. Recently, via Lifehacker, I learned that the producers of the Periodic Table of Videos partnered with TED-Ed to create lessons about every element in the Periodic […]

5 Ways to Improve Your Next Video

Today we have more tools to record, edit, and share videos than ever before. With the tap of an app or the click of a link, you and your students can be making videos to tell stories, to teach lessons, or to share news. That’s why more than 300 hours of video gets added to […]

The Origins of the London Underground

Fun fact: I once got terribly lost in London when the Tube line that I was on unexpectedly (to me, anyway) went out of service and I had to find an alternate route back to my hotel. I’m telling you that only as a way to introduce a new TED-Ed lesson about the world’s first […]

Tube – A Distraction-free Way to Search and Watch YouTube

Tube is a new tool providing a minimalist view of YouTube. When you go to Tube all you will see is “Tube,” a disclaimer, a link to the developer’s Twitter account, and a search box. Enter your search terms into the Tube search box and a list of results appears below it without showing any […]

A Crash Course in Taxes

The deadline to file income tax returns here in the U.S. is less than one week away. If you have high school students, some of them may be filing taxes (or having parents do it on their behalf) for the first time. That may lead to all kinds of questions about why we have taxes, […]

Reminder – Free Common Craft Webinar Today

Today, at 2pm Eastern Time, Lee LeFever from Common Craft is hosting a free webinar about how they make their popular explanatory videos. During the webinar Lee will show how their process from start to finish. Register here to join the free webinar. In other Common Craft news, they released a new video this week. […]

What Causes Body Odor? – A TED-Ed Lesson

What Causes Body Odor? is a new TED-Ed lesson that every middle school health teacher will want to bookmark. The lesson explains where body odor comes from, the processes that and contribute to body odor, and how antiperspirants work. What Causes Body Odor? is part of TED-Ed playlist called Gross Science. Gross Science includes video […]

The Lives of Teenagers and Soldiers in Ancient Rome

One of the earliest TED-Ed lessons was about teenage life in Ancient Rome.The video and its associated questions feature the story of seventeen year old Lucius Popidius Secundus. Last week TED-Ed published a new lesson about life in Ancient Rome. In A Day In the Life of a Roman Soldier students learn about a soldier […]

5 TED-Ed Lessons About How the Food We Eat Affects Our Bodies

This morning while my daughter was napping I went down the rabbit hole of YouTube related videos. It started out as a simple search for some new cycling workout videos and ended up with this TED-Ed lesson about carbohydrates. That lesson goes nicely with some other TED-Ed lessons that I have bookmarked about how the […]

Spring?! – Three Short Lessons About Seasons

It might not feel like it to many of us, but tomorrow is the first day of spring in the northern hemisphere. If you’re looking for some quick video lessons about the seasons, take a look at the following three options. Time has just released a new video that features images and text about the […]

FAQs About Tomorrow’s Video Projects Webinar

Tomorrow at 4pm Eastern Time I am hosting a webinar that is titled 5 Video Projects for Almost Every Classroom. As I write this, 25 people are registered and I’ve answered a bunch of questions from readers who are interested in registering. I recorded the following short video by using YouTube Live to answer those […]

Three Free iPad Apps for Creating Animated Movies

Last night I answered an email from a reader who was looking for a free alternative to Tellagami. Tellagami hasn’t been updated to work with iOS 11 so if you’ve updated your iPad, the app won’t work. Tellagami says that an update is coming, but I’m not holding my breath waiting for that. They said […]

Here’s the Way That I Recommend Using the Internet Archive

In last night’s Practical Ed Tech Tip of the Week newsletter I mentioned using the Internet Archive as a source of public domain video clips to re-use in classroom video projects. That suggestion drew a lot of emails from readers this morning. Most of the emails expressed concern about the content that students can find […]

Timelinely – Annotate Videos With Text and Pictures

Timelinely is a new tool for annotating videos that are hosted on YouTube. I learned about Timelinely through one of Larry Ferlazzo’s recent blog posts. I tried Timelinely for myself this afternoon. Timelinely makes it easy to get started. You just have to copy a YouTube URL into the Timelinely homepage to get started. Once […]

It’s Time to Change the Clocks – Here’s Why

It’s that time of year again when most of us in North America have to move our clocks forward by one hour. That’s right, Daylight Saving Time starts on Sunday! That means that on Monday morning you may have some students may come to class complaining about their lost hour of sleep. They may also […]

How to Find Public Domain Videos on Flickr

Flickr is known for hosting millions of images, but it also hosts lots of videos. The advanced search tools within Flickr make it easy to find videos that have Creative Commons licenses or have a public domain designation. With just one click those videos can be downloaded to your computer. Watch my video embedded below […]

Three Places to Find Public Domain Video Clips

This afternoon I received an email from a reader who was trying to help one of her colleagues with a classroom video project. They wanted to know if it was possible to download YouTube videos or to make a screencast of a YouTube video to then use in another video. My response was to point […]

Use ViewPure to Share a Portion of a Video With Password Protection

Over the weekend I shared information about ViewPure’s curated playlists for teachers and students. Another feature of ViewPure that you should note is the option to share just a portion of a video and to password protect it when you share it. To share a portion of a YouTube video through ViewPure you first need […]

Making Maple Syrup – A Science and Math Lesson

The days are getting warmer here in Maine, the sun is shining a bit longer each day, and the snow is starting to melt. That means that two of a Mainer’s favorite seasons are starting; mud season and maple syrup season. My friend Gardner Waldeier AKA Bus Huxley on YouTube collects maple sap to make maple […]

ViewPure Now Offers Curated Playlists

ViewPure, a great tool for distraction-free YouTube viewing, has relatively new collections of videos for teachers. The collections are organized according to grade level and topic. Start here by choosing either high school, middle school, upper elementary, or pre-K through lower elementary. After choosing the grade range you can choose a subject area and then […]

This Is Why I Share Interesting Videos

I share interesting videos on this blog on a regular basis because I always found that a good, short video can be an good lead-in to a lesson or discussion. This morning I woke up to this nice Tweet from Vilma Manahan that confirmed for me that other teachers feel the same way. Thank you […]

Common Craft Explains Flipped Classrooms

The flipped classroom concept, in the right setting, can be an effective way to maximize classroom time. Perhaps you’ve tried it yourself and have been looking for a way to explain it to parents or colleagues. Common Craft recently released a good video that could help you do just that. Flipped Classroom Explained by Common […]

ReClipped Adds New Features for Recording & Sharing Video Notes

ReClipped is a video annotation tool that I first tried back in November. I was impressed by how ReClipped lets you not only clip or highlight sections of videos, but also lets you write time-stamped notes about those clipped sections. Watch the video here to see ReClipped in action. Recently, ReClipped added some new features […]

Common Craft Explains Blockchain

Turn on any of the 24/7 cable news networks today and you’re likely to hear about Bitcoin and or blockchain. Bitcoin is in the news because of its wild fluctuations in value over the last year. Blockchain is what makes cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin possible. If that seems clear as mud, you should watch Common Craft’s […]

ClassHook Adds a New Feature for Using Videos in Your Classroom

ClassHook is a free service that helps you locate video clips to use in your classroom. ClassHook’s best feature is being able to search for video clips according to subject and topic. Most of the video clips that you’ll find on ClassHook come from well-known television shows and movies. Over the weekend ClassHook introduced a […]

The Math and Science of Valentine’s Day

Valentine’s Day is less than two weeks away. In middle schools and high schools everywhere there will be students who are excited about it, some who dread it, and others who are indifferent. I always fell into the indifferent category. Wherever your students stand on Valentine’s Day, the following two videos make for interesting lessons […]

The History of the State of the Union Address

Tonight, President Trump delivered the State of the Union Address. This post is not about what he said or didn’t say tonight. Instead, it is intended to share some resources that could help you teach your students about the history of the State of the Union Address. The following two videos from CNN and Fox […]

My Unprofessional Videos

If you follow my YouTube channel or even if you just watch the videos that I put into blog posts here, you’ll notice a significant lack of editing. In the last couple of weeks I’ve had a few people ask me why I don’t make my videos look more professional. So this morning I went […]

Sundials and Snowflakes – How to Make Your Own

SciShow Kids recently published a new video that explains to students how a sundial works and how they can make their own sundials. The video could be the basis for a fun, hands-on lesson about learning to tell time. For those in cold, northern climates creating and taking sundials outside with your students might not […]

Citations and Citing Your Work – New Common Craft Video

What needs to be cited and what doesn’t need to be cited in a paper is a question that has confounded many students over the years. Common Craft has a new video that addresses that question and more. Citations and Citing Your Work teaches students about the differences between in-text and full citations and how […]

Midterm Elections – 5 Things You Should Know

2018 is a midterm election year in the United States. What’s that mean? In short, it is the Congressional elections that happen in the middle of a president’s term in office. But to find out what midterm elections really mean, students should watch 5 Things You Should Know About Midterm Elections. In this video produced […]

Videos and Google Earth File for Learning About Glaciers

SciShow Kids recently published a new video that explains to children how glaciers are formed and how they change over time. SciShow Kids is intended for early elementary school grades and this video about glaciers not an exception to that pattern. For older students you might want to take a look at How Do Glaciers […]

What is a Red Herring? – And Other Lessons on Critical Thinking

In today’s age of clickbait headlines and increasingly polarized news reporting, it is more important than ever to teach students to be critical thinkers. One of the ways that we can do that is to teach them about logical fallacies and how they are used to try to win an argument. Wireless Philosophy offers 35 […]

Don’t Tell People About Your New Year’s Resolution

Happy New Year! I hope that 2018 is a great year for you and that you accomplish all of the goals that you set for yourself in 2018. Just don’t tell me or anyone else what those goals are unless you’re asking for an accountability partner. It’s not that I don’t care about your goals, […]

33 Lessons on Critical Thinking – Best of 2017

As I do during this week every year, I am taking some time off to relax and prepare for the new year. Every day this week I will be featuring the most popular blog posts of the year. This was one of the most popular posts in April. From analyzing a persuasive essay to dissecting […]

22 Videos That Can Help Students Improve Their Writing – Best of 2017

As I do during this week every year, I am taking some time off to relax and prepare for the new year. Every day this week I will be featuring the most popular blog posts of the year. This was one of the most popular posts in March. The Writer’s Workshop is a playlist of twenty-two TED-Ed lessons. […]

Ancient Egypt 101 – A Six Minute Primer

Ancient Egypt 101 is a new video produced by National Geographic. The video doesn’t reveal any new information or go into any great detail. What it does provide is a concise overview of the history of ancient Egypt and how some aspects of ancient Egyptian culture are still present today. Applications for Education One of […]

The Shortest Day of the Year

Good morning from chilly Paris Hill, Maine where my thermometer reads 11F, but it feels more like 0F. Not only is it going to be cold all day, it’s also going to be the day that we have the least sunlight all year. That is because today is the winter solstice. Here’s a small collection […]

Seven Ways to Create Screencasts on Chromebooks

With the addition of Screencast-O-Matic there are now seven tools that teachers and students can use to create screencast videos on their Chromebooks. If you missed yesterday’s news, Screencast-O-Matic is currently offering a public beta of their Chrome app. To use Screencast-O-Matic on your Chromebook you will need to go to this page while on your Chromebook, […]

Three Ways to Collaboratively Create Video Playlists

From cats doing tricks to documentaries about cats in Egyptian art, we watch more videos today than we ever have before. The challenge is weeding through all of the ridiculous cat videos to find the good stuff that you can share with your students. And once you find the good videos, you’ll want to organize […]

7 Ways to Use Online Video In Your Classroom

Four years ago I was in love with a great video creation tool called Wideo. I made a bunch of videos on Wideo’s website and featured it in many blog posts and workshops. Unfortunately, Wideo is no longer free, but a good promotional video for Wideo still remains. The video highlights seven ideas for using video in […]

How to Use Flipgrid – A Guide for Getting Started

Flipgrid is a fantastic service for collecting video responses to prompts that you pose to your students. It has been a hit whenever I have demonstrated it in a workshop or conference presentation during the last year. The basic idea behind Flipgrid is that it enables you to post a video prompt and then have […]

Three Good Ways to Create Instructional Animations

Earlier this week I shared five ways to create animated movies on Chromebooks. Creating animated movies can be a lot of fun for you and your students. But sometimes you just need a short animation to get your point across or to remind students about an important point. That’s when the following three tools are […]

The Science of Snowflakes

Here in western Maine we’re expecting our second real snowstorm of the winter to arrive tonight. This has reminded me of a couple of educational videos that explain the science of snowflakes. The Science of Snowflakes is a TED-Ed video lesson that explains how snowflakes are formed, why they’re all different, and why seem to […]

Chemistry in Slow Motion

The Periodic Table of Videos produced by The University of Nottingham features a video demonstration of the characteristics of each element in the Periodic Table of Elements. Each element in the Periodic Table displayed on the home page is linked to a corresponding YouTube video. The Periodic Table of Videos YouTube channel contains some additional features that teachers […]

Distraction-free YouTube Viewing

On Monday night, during How to Teach With Video, someone asked, “what do you do about all the yucky ads on YouTube?” A couple of members of the class suggested ad blocker extensions. I suggested trying Quietube. Quietube is a convenient tool that you can add to your browser’s bookmarks bar. Quietube will remove all the […]

Why You Should Get a Flu Shot Every Year

I was at my local pharmacy yesterday and they had a sign encouraging people to get a flu shot. The small print on the sign pointed that you should get a flu shot every year. Your students might be wondering, “why do I have to get a flu vaccine shot again this year?” If that’s […]

Online Basics – Three New Videos from Common Craft

For those of us who use social media on a daily basis and who do most of our shopping online, it can be easy to falsely assume that everyone else is equally comfortable online. That’s why I was happy to see Common Craft’s new videos about online basics. Common Craft’s new online basics series contains […]

Create Great Video Lessons on iSL Collective

iSL Collective offers a huge gallery of video-based lessons designed to help students learn English. It also offers a fantastic tool for teachers to use to create their own video-based lessons. iSL Collective’s video lesson creator lets you build questions into videos found on YouTube and on Vimeo. The lesson creator allows you to add […]

Four Tools for Recording Time-stamped Notes While Watching Videos

This post was updated on December 10, 2021 to remove links to services that no longer exist.  There are many tools for creating video-based lessons and quizzes in which students answer the questions that you create for them. There is nothing inherently wrong with that. I’ve done that myself. However, there are times when I […]

ReClipped – Take Notes and Share Notes on Educational Videos

ReClipped is a neat tool that lets you take notes, share notes, and share clips from educational videos. ReClipped blends the best aspects of TurboNote, VideoNot.es, and Pinterest into one slick system. With a ReClipped account you can clip sections of videos that you find on YouTube, Vimeo, DailyMotion, Coursera, and TED. In addition to […]

How to Teach With Video

According to YouTube the average teenager spends more than 45 minutes per day watching videos. That presents a great opportunity to teach them valuable lessons from your curriculum, if you know how to do it right. In How to Teach With Video Keith Hughes, Tom Richey, and I will teach you how to create engaging […]

Intro to Teaching With Video

Last week Keith Hughes, Tom Richey, and I hosted Introduction to Teaching With Video. If you missed it, you can now view it on my YouTube channel or as embedded below. In the video we share some of our favorite tips for teachers who are new to creating instructional videos. You’ll also get hear us share our […]

Three Things That Can Help You Teach With Video

Whether you want to make your own instructional videos or you just want to make sure that your students are learning something from the videos that you share with them, there are a few basic things that you should know. 1. Short and sweet. Two well-made videos that are each two minutes long are better […]

Introduction to Teaching With Video

A couple of weeks ago I announced that Keith Hughes, Tom Richey, and I will be hosting an online course all about how to teach with video. That course will begin on November 27th. Since the course was announced I have fielded quite a few questions about it. To answer those questions and to share […]

4 Ways to Use Flipgrid in 4th Grade

This is a guest post from Caroline Schaab. As a 4th grade teacher, I’m always looking for creative ways spark curiosity, promote student voice, and keeps students engaged and to want to continue learning outside of school. Last year, with a few weeks left in the school year, I was introduced to Flipgrid. Fligrid is […]

Using Video to Improve Teaching Practice

This is a guest post from Harrison McCoy. Speaking transparently, I have to admit I don’t like the way I appear in videos. To be totally truthful, I dislike the way my voice sounds even more. Yet, I recognize the effectiveness of using video in teaching, coaching, and training, and one of my professional goals […]

Implied Powers – American Government Review

Keith Hughes recently published a new video for students of U.S. History and U.S. Government. The video is titled What Are Implied Powers? The video features an overview of the debate between Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson over the interpretation of the Elastic Clause and General Welfare Clause. Check out the video as embedded below. […]

How to Teach With Video – Live Event With Tom Richey, Keith Hughes, and Me

In case you missed my excited post on Twitter last week, last week two of my favorite YouTube video producers, Tom Richey and Keith Hughes, agreed to help me host a live three night event all about teaching with video. Between us we have more than 250,000 YouTube followers. All three of us share a […]

How Deep Is the Ocean? – This Video Puts It Into Perspective

Understanding the scale of something like depth of the ocean or distance to the moon is best done with visuals that are familiar to students. That’s why I am excited to share this video from Tech Insider about the depth of the ocean. It does a great job of helping viewers understand the depths of […]

The Science of Autumn

This Friday is the Autumnal Equinox in the northern hemisphere. The changing leaves, the cooler air, and the earlier sunsets are just part of science of autumn. Here are some resources for teaching and learning about the sights and sounds of autumn. To help students understand why the leaves change colors in the fall, the […]

How to Collaborate to Create YouTube Playlists

Last fall I published a video in which I demonstrated how to collaboratively create a YouTube playlist. The concepts in that video are still valid, but the layout of YouTube has recently changed a bit. Therefore, it I made an updated video that demonstrates how to collaboratively create a YouTube playlist. Applications for Education There […]

National Geographic 101

National Geographic 101 is a nice series of videos produced by National Geographic. The videos in the series provide short (2-5 minutes) explanations of an array of science topics including space science, geology, and weather. The sample that I have embedded below is Volcanoes 101. Applications for Education All of the videos in this series […]

Practical Ed Tech Live – Episode #17

Yesterday afternoon I recorded a new episode of Practical Ed Tech Live. This is my (usually) weekly live stream in which I answer questions that were sent to me during the previous week. I also answer questions that are submitted on the fly. I’ll host another episode next Tuesday afternoon. Subscribe to my YouTube channel […]

How to Share a Portion of a YouTube Video

Over the years I have used videos to recap a lesson, to introduce a new concept, and to spark discussion amongst my students. When sharing videos with students I will often share just a portion of it. Usually, this means that I have them skip the first twenty or thirty seconds that has intro or […]

Phrasal Verbs Friends – Fun Phrasal Verb Videos

One of the challenges that ELL students face is understanding the meanings of phrasal verbs. In the past I have featured a couple of apps that are designed to help students understand phrasal verbs. A newer resource worth bookmarking is the YouTube channel Phrasal Verbs Friends. Phrasal Verbs Friends videos are cartoons featuring cats explaining […]

417 History and Civics Lessons In One Place

On Friday I featured Tom Richey’s YouTube channel which is full of great content for Advanced Placement U.S. and European History students. Today, I want to point out or remind you about the excellent videos that Keith Hughes produces. Keith has at least 417 video lessons about a wide range of topics in U.S. and […]

How Do Glaciers Move?

Five years ago my old pal Morrison (RIP) and I traveled down the Columbia Icefields Parkway. It was a great way to experience part of the Canadian Rockies including seeing the glaciers that melt and feed tributaries of rivers that will eventually reach the Pacific, Atlantic, and Arctic oceans. That begged the questions of how […]

What Happens to Your Brain When You Get a Concussion

As the return of football season approaches we hear more stories about professional and student athletes dealing with concussions. TED-Ed recently published a timely lesson about what happens to our brains when we have concussions. The six minute video explains what a concussion is, the short-term and long-term effects of concussions, and myths about concussions. […]

Math Shorts – 21 Math Lessons from Planet Nutshell

I became a big fan of Planet Nutshell the first time that I saw their series of videos on Internet Safety. Math Shorts is another great series offered by Planet Nutshell. Math Shorts is a series of 21 animated math video lessons. The majority of the videos are designed for third through eighth grade. Each of […]

Get Inspired By These Videos

This is a guest post from Rushton Hurley. Rushton is the founder of Next Vista for Learning and the author of Making Your School Something Special.  I love an inspiring video. While I think it’s inspiring that there are over two thousand short videos created by and for teachers and students everywhere on NextVista.org, we also have a […]

Public Domain Explained by Common Craft

Public Domain Explained by Common Craft is a new video that answers some common questions about the differences between works that are in the public domain and those that are copyrighted. The video also teaches how works end up in the public domain and some tips for finding media that is in the public domain. […]

Simpleshow Foundation Seeks Volunteers to Help Educate Through Video

The Simpleshow Foundation is a non-profit organization founder by mysimpleshow’s founders for the purpose of helping to educate the world through video. The Simpleshow Foundation recently partnered with the United Nations System Staff College (UNSSC) to develop videos to explain the 17 sustainable development goals of UN Agenda 2030. The Simpleshow Foundation is seeking volunteer […]

A Convenient New Way to Search for Educational Videos

ClassHook is a free service that can help you find video clips to support your lessons. The clips that you’ll find in ClassHook come from well-known television shows and movies. You can find video clips on ClassHook by selecting a topic and browsing through the collection. ClassHook also has a search tool that allows you to […]

12 Lessons About Inventions That Kind of Changed the World

TED-Ed has a series of twelve video lessons called Moments of Vision. The videos in the series teach short lessons about inventions that may or may not have changed the world. For example, the invention of the stethoscope did change health care. The invention of the Popsicle, however, just makes summer days a little more […]

How the Human Body Processes Medicine

As some of you may have seen on Instagram, I injured my right hand on Friday evening. After looking at the cuts on my hand, the emergency room doctor prescribed a round of antibiotics and a mild pain reliever. So it was with some extra interest that I watched a new TED-Ed lesson titled How […]

7 Good Resources for Learning About Mount Everest

Next week many mountaineers will be making their summit attempts on Mount Everest. As long-time readers of this blog may recall, one of my bucket list items is seeing Mount Everest in person. Until then I have to entertain myself with books, videos, and imagery of the mountain. Here are some of the resources that […]

How the Popsicle Was Invented – A Tasty TED-Ed Lesson

How the Popsicle Was Invented is the title of a recently released TED-Ed video. The short video explains the origin of the tasty treat itself as well as the name “Popsicle.” This TED-Ed lesson doesn’t include any multiple choice or discussion questions. It’s just a fun little lesson for students to think about as the […]

Check123 – A Video Encyclopedia

Check123 is a website that aims to help teachers and students find educational videos. The “123” aspect of the name Check123 refers to the length of the videos on the site. All of the videos are either one, two, or three minutes long. You can refine your search results according to length of video, subject, […]

Live Video of Owls, Ospreys, and More

Explore.org offers the largest collection of live nature webcams on the web. In the gallery of live webcams you will find video feeds featuring owls in their nests, ospreys in their nests, and bald eagles in nests, and video feeds featuring puffins. As it is spring in the northern hemisphere, the bird videos feeds are […]

Kitchen Science – Let’s Make Butter

SciShow Kids recently released a new video titled Let’s Make Butter. The video provides directions for making butter in your kitchen then goes on to explain the science of what happens in the process of making butter. Applications for Education Rainy days like the one we’re having here in Maine are perfect for kitchen science […]

Find Inspiration for Video Projects While Judging a Video Contest

This is a guest post from Rushton Hurley. Rushton is the founder of Next Vista for Learning and the author of Making Your School Something Special.  Every year, Next Vista for Learning challenges students at schools around the world to create videos telling about the efforts of those who work to make life better for others. Could you […]

A Crash Course on the History of Movies

Thanks to Open Culture I learned about a new Crash Course that should be fun to follow for the next sixteen weeks. Crash Course Film History promises to take viewers through the evolution of movies from a technical perspective as well as the cultural evolution of movies. The first episode in the series goes back […]

Words of the World – Learn the Origin of Words

Words of the World is another excellent set of videos from the same people that brought us the popular Periodic Table of Videos. Words of the World is a collection of videos featuring historians and linguists explaining the origins of and history of the use of words in the English language. The videos attempt to put the […]

The PeriodicTable of Videos – An Update from the Archive

Earlier this week an email from a reader prompted me to take a look back through my archives for chemistry-related resources. The Periodic Table of Videos is one that popped-up that I hadn’t thought about in years. In fact, it has been nine years since I wrote about it. In that time a lot of […]

Dogs and Humans – A Long History of Friendship

Anyone who has followed this blog for more than a week or two has probably picked up on my love for my dogs (#adoptdontshop). I’m certainly not the first person and I won’t be the last person to have a strong bond with dogs. Who were the first people to bond with dogs? Or did […]

A Student With Autism Explains Autism

This is a guest post from Rushton Hurley. Rushton is the founder of Next Vista for Learning and the author of Making Your School Something Special. This particular post features a video that I have featured many times in my own video workshops.  April is National Autism Awareness Month in the USA. Several years ago, […]

33 Lessons on Critical Thinking

From analyzing a persuasive essay to dissecting research findings to determining the cause of an outcome in a science lab, having sharp critical thinking skills serves students well. Wireless Philosophy has a series of 33 video lessons about critical thinking. The most recent lesson explains the difference between causation and correlation. Take a look at […]

5 Good Resources for National Poetry Month

April is Poetry Month. Whether you’re trying to help students understand and interpret the meaning of poems or you’re trying to help them write their own poems, the following five resources are worth exploring. (By the way, I always wonder who gets to declare the something is “national X month?” That might be a good, […]

Video Tips With Isla

Folks who follow my YouTube channel may have noticed that I’ve started using the live video option within YouTube’s Android app. This morning I used YouTube live to record a little video tip with my daughter, Isla. The tip is to look at the camera instead of the screen when you’re recording. In the video […]

How to Add Interactive End Screens to YouTube Videos

Last week YouTube announced that the popular annotations option in the YouTube editor is going to be removed at the end of April. While annotations will be missed by many, it was a great tool for creating a “choose your own adventure” series, there is still a similar option available. End screens in the YouTube […]

Students Evaluating Student Work

This is a guest post from my friend Rushton Hurley. Rushton is the founder of Next Vista for Learning and the author of Making Your School Something Special. At the recent #CUE17 conference, I ran a workshop on getting a digital video project going. While a good chunk of the session was devoted to exploring […]

What Makes a Poem?

April is Poetry Month. As you start to plan poetry lessons, consider that many students will first wonder, “what makes a poem?” A new TED-Ed lesson addresses that question. In watching What Makes a Poem? students can learn the origins of poetry, the characteristics traditionally associated with poems, and the format of a haiku. The […]

A Couple of Short Lessons About Changing Seasons

Today is the first day of spring in the Northern Hemisphere. Although the five foot tall snowbanks around my house make that hard to believe. Why do we have seasons? What causes the changes in weather patterns throughout the seasons? The answers to those questions and more are found in the following SciShow Kids video […]

Piracy Online Explained by Common Craft

Piracy Online is the most recent addition to Common Craft’s library of excellent explanatory videos. The video teaches viewers what online piracy is, how it violates copyright laws, and how online piracy impacts artists, software developers, and consumers. Applications for Education Understanding why using pirated music, videos, and software is illegal is part of helping […]

McCarthyism Explained In a New TED-Ed Video

Earlier this week TED-Ed published a new video lesson that explains McCarthyism. In What is McCarthyism? And How Did It Happen? students can learn the origins of McCarthyism and the actions of HUAC. Students can also learn how some people were ensnared in the actions of McCarthy and HUAC. Take a look at this CommonLit […]

5 Ways to Show YouTube Videos Without Related Content

Anyone who has ever opened YouTube in front of a classroom knows the feeling of dread that comes with hoping that the “related” content in the sidebar really is related content. Likewise, you hope that the “related” videos at the end of the one you’re showing are appropriate for your classroom. Here are five ways […]

7 Great Tools for Creating Flipped Lessons from Existing Videos

When they are used in the right context flipped lessons can be a good complement to classroom instruction. Not everyone has the time or skill to make effective instructional videos for their students. In those cases you can take advantage of the millions of hours of instructional videos found on YouTube and other video sharing […]

Create Screencast Videos on Chromebooks – Three Good Options

One of the best ways to show your students or colleagues how to use a new web tool is to give them a short video to watch. The benefit of creating and sharing a screencast is that your students or colleagues can watch your tutorial as many times as they need to. If you’re a […]

A Visual Awareness Test

Last week in a presentation about search strategies and fake news awareness I shared the following video from Transport for London. My purpose in sharing the video was to make a point similar that in the video. When you’re not expecting to be on the look out for strange or unexpected things, you don’t always […]

Two Fun Videos for High School Grammar Lessons

The resources that I shared in the post previous to this one offer games that help students learn and remember the rules of grammar. At the high school level, the following two videos offer fun introductions to grammar lessons. In Glove and Boots Fix Your Grammar the popular puppets Glove and Boots use fun examples from the web […]

Collecting Students’ Insights

This is a guest post from Rushton Hurley. He is the founder of Next Vista for Learning and the author of Making Your School Something Special. What if once or twice every year your students made short videos that could help everyone in class prepare for their exams? What if these videos became a collection […]

All About American Bison

There is a chilling scene in Dances With Wolves in which Kevin Costner’s character and the Lakota Indians come over a hill to see hundreds of bison carcasses left to rot on the plains. I have, on occasion, shown that scene to students. It’s a good illustration of what Americans did to the bison herds […]

Make Your Videos Lively With Puppets

This is a guest post from Rushton Hurley. Rushton is the founder of Next Vista for Learning and the author of Making Your School Something Special. Getting a thought across to students in a short video can happen in all sorts of ways, and using puppets is one of the better ones for making content […]

The Art of Storytelling – Pixar in a Box

The Art of Storytelling is part of the Pixar in a Box a project from Pixar and Khan Academy through which students can learn how the stories they see in Pixar movies come to life. The Art of Storytelling is a section of Pixar in a Box that teaches students about four elements universal to […]

Valentine’s Day Math, Science, and Philosophy Lessons

Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day. Whether you buy into the “holiday” or not, your students probably do. Here are three short video lessons related to Valentine’s Day. The following video from It’s Okay To Be Smart (produced by PBS Digital Studios) explains why humans kiss, the history of symbols associated with kissing, and some cultural views […]

Videos With Little (and Not So Little) Kiddos

This is a guest post from Rushton Hurley, the founder of Next Vista for Learning and the author of Making Your School Something Special. For many of us, student videos call to mind secondary, or perhaps upper elementary students putting together some creative thought about their learning. Art teacher Tricia Fuglestad worked with her kindergartners to come up […]

How to Make Your YouTube Videos Interactive

This afternoon at the CSLA 2017 conference I facilitated a workshop about creating videos with students. One of the most popular aspects of the workshop was using the YouTube annotations to create interactive or choose-your-own-adventure video series. In the video embedded below I provide a demonstration of how to add annotations to YouTube videos. The […]

The Superb Owl – A Science Lesson With a Super Bowl Theme

Earlier this week I shared a few Super Bowl-themed lesson ideas. Here’s one more to close out the week before the Super Bowl. The Superb Owl is a cute video about owls. The video presents interesting facts about four types of owls. The whole four minute video is presented as if it is an NFL […]

Identity Theft and How to Prevent It – A New Common Craft Video

Not every attempt at identity theft is as obvious as the Nigerian Prince scam. Attempts at identity theft come in the forms of emails that look like they might be from your bank and phone calls from people asking you to give away “confirm” your account information. I once had someone attempt to get me […]

How Not To…

This is a guest post from Ruston Hurley, the founder of Next Vista for Learning and the author of Making Your School Something Special. It can be work getting students (and ourselves, truth be told) to remember what we should do. Getting our charges to make a video explaining what to do can be helpful, […]

How to Record Video Notes With MoocNote

MoocNote is a free tool for taking notes while watching a YouTube or Vimeo video. All of your notes are timestamped and all of your notes can be shared with other MoocNote users. In the short video embedded below I demonstrate how to take notes while watching videos through MoocNote. Applications for Education MoocNote can […]

The Fun of Remembering Something Important

This is a guest post from Ruston Hurley. Rushton is the founder of Next Vista for Learning. Can explaining something abstract be interesting and fun? Can students more easily memorize something through a clever video? Whatever you need a student to remember, students may have a fun take on how to make it happen! In […]

A Short Lesson About the Great Lakes

In the fall of 2012 I crisscrossed my way across Michigan’s upper peninsula. In doing so I was able to experience some of the magnitude of Lake Superior, Lake Michigan, and Lake Huron. I was along the shore of Lake Superior during a storm that created waves the size of those we see on Maine’s […]

Next Vista’s Video Contests Show Great Examples of Student Productions

This is a guest post from Ruston Hurley, the founder of Next Vista for Learning. Imagine that your students are thinking of ways to explain challenging concepts to their peers or younger students. Can they put “Think of it this way…” into short videos that would help others for years to come? Getting an idea […]

EDpuzzle – Readers’ Favorite App

At the end of December I asked you to submit your nominations for favorite educational apps. The nomination form was divided into three sections. Those sections were iOS, Android, and Web/Chrome apps. In all three sections EDpuzzle was nominated more than any other app. If you are not familiar with EDPuzzle is a neat tool […]

A Short Guide to Using Adobe Spark in School

I have received a lot of questions about Adobe Spark since I published my latest post about creating videos on Chromebooks. Many of the most common questions about Adobe Spark are answered in the free Adobe Spark Edu Guide (link opens a PDF). In the guide you will find answers to questions about data privacy, using […]

Colds, the Flu, and You – Lessons on Staying Healthy

I am just getting over a cold that had me sniffling, sneezing, and coughing for about ten days. Fortunately, it was just a cold and not the flu. What’s the difference between the two? How can you avoid catching either? Those questions and more are answered in the following videos. Colds, the Flu, and You […]

Why We Feel Attached to Our Stuff – A TED-Ed Lesson

A few years ago I realized that somewhere along the line I started to collect coffee mugs. I never set out to collect coffee mugs, it just kind of happened. Now I have a few favorite mugs that I won’t part with even as I start packing my house (I sold it last month) and […]

Student Videos Celebrating Service – Cool Projects

This is a guest post from Rushton Hurley, the founder of Next Vista for Learning. Teachers have a love-hate relationship with cool projects. They often find the extra time one requires a burden, but love seeing what the students do when given room to see that they’re capable of taking their talents to another level. […]

A Cute Video About Email Etiquette for Students – Best of 2016

As I usually do during this week, I’m taking some time off to relax, ski, and work on some long-term projects for the next year. This week I will be re-publishing the most popular posts of 2016. Next Vista for Learning is a unique video sharing website because it focuses on sharing videos made by […]

Three Tools Students Can Use to Add Annotations to Videos – Best of 2016

As I usually do during this week, I’m taking some time off to relax, ski, and work on some long-term projects for the next year. This week I will be re-publishing the most popular posts of 2016.  When we talk about flipped lessons it often involves a lot of heavy lifting on a teacher’s part. […]

How Trees Survive The Winter

It was a crisp -10F at my house this morning. When it’s that cold everything seems crisp, brittle, and well…frozen. It makes you wonder how anything survives for long outside. I know that I’m always amazed when my lilac and blueberry bushes bounce back to life every spring. How do they do that? The answer […]

Brrr…Lessons on Winter Weather

The weather forecast for my town calls for a temperature of -5F and a wind chill of -33F tonight. I’ll be bundling up when my dogs need to go out tonight. The cold forecast made me think about some resources for teaching lessons about winter weather. The following video explains how wind chill is calculated. […]

What’s in Dry-Erase Markers? – How Do They Work?

Even in the most tech-laden schools you can still walk into almost any classroom and find a dry-erase marker and whiteboard. Whether it’s to write a reminder for your students or to spell out a key term, it’s quick and easy to scribble on whiteboard. But what is in those dry-erase markers we use? And […]

Video Creation Tools & Ideas – Slides from #TETC16

This afternoon at the TETC conference I gave a short presentation on classroom video projects. As always, I promised to share the slides with folks who wanted them. Those slides are embedded below. The concepts and tools that I talked about in today’s presentation are the same as those that I shared in my webinar, […]

Use Stories to Help Students See Possibilities for Helping Others

This is a guest post from Rushton Hurley. Rushton is the founder of Next Vista for Learning and an all-around great guy. Some of your students may doubt their hopes can make a difference for themselves and for others. This is the time of year, though, to use stories to help them see their possibilities. […]

Five Lessons On How Computers Work

We use them every day. Our students do the same. But do we ever stop and wonder how computers work? The latest Sci Show Kids episode explains in simple terms how computers work. The video contains fine explanations for elementary school students albeit a bit too fast-paced for my liking. Watching the video sent me […]

Two YouTube Search Methods You Might Be Overlooking

YouTube can be a great source of educational videos to share with your students. It can also be a great source of frustration to weed through all of the content on YouTube to find the best videos to share with your students. There are couple of easy things that you can do to find better […]

Resources for Teaching and Learning About Pearl Harbor

This coming Wednesday marks 75 years since the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor. That attack drew the United States into World War II. Here are some resources for teaching and learning about Pearl Harbor. Five Things You Don’t Know About Pearl Harbor, produced by Military.com, offers five interesting facts about and related to the bombing […]

Showing Learning at a Higher Level Through Vocabulary

This is a guest post from Rushton Hurley, founder of Next Vista for Learning. Can exploring a single vocabulary word show learning at a higher level? One teacher in California decided to have students try focusing on a single idea from her English course, and one student decided to work with how language develops: A […]

A Simple Alternative to Blubbr for Making Video Quizzes

On Wednesday morning I received an email from a reader who had been using Blubbr to create video quizzes for her students. Unfortunately, Blubbr seems to have gone offline so she was looking for a replacement. My immediate suggestion was to try Vizia. Vizia lets you build multiple choice questions into any YouTube video. The […]

A Brief History of Timezones

When I signed into Facebook this morning I was greeted by a notice that on this day in 1883 the railroad industry in North America began using the four timezones that are still in use today. Upon reading that notice I immediately remembered a TED-Ed lesson on the topic. Where did timezones come from? What […]

How to Collaboratively Create YouTube Playlists – Updated

Last year I published a video about how to collaboratively create YouTube playlists. Since then the steps for doing that have changed a little bit. Also this week I had someone ask if I could make a video about making YouTube playlists. To address both items I created the new tutorial video, How to Collaboratively […]

One More Halloween-themed Lesson – 4 Fun Facts About Ravens

A couple of weeks ago I shared four Halloween-themed video lessons from SciShow Kids. This morning I discovered another SciShow Kids video that falls into the same category. In 4 Things You Didn’t Know About Ravens students can learn that crows and ravens are not the same bird and how to tell the difference. The […]

Electoral Decoder Shows Students the Math of Presidential Elections

Throughout 2016 PBS has been steadily adding more features to their Election Central website for students. Electoral Decoder is one of the recent additions to the site that I discovered through an ad on Facebook. Electoral Decoder uses cartograms to show students the math of the Electoral College. In other words, it shows them that […]

TurboNote Adds New Features for Syncing Notes to Videos

TurboNote is a great Chrome extension that lets you take time-stamped notes while watching videos on YouTube, Vimeo, Facebook, and many other video sharing sites. I was immediately impressed by TurboNote when I reviewed it last month. This week TurboNote released two great updates. Those updates feature transcript search and synced viewing. In the updated […]

Which Parts of the Brain Do What?

Which Parts of the Brain Do What? is the title of a new MinuteEarth video. In the short video students can learn a bit about the origins of brain studies, how FRMIs changed the way brain function is studied, and why correlation does not always equal causation. The video also introduces students to the terms […]

How to Include Video Feedback in Google Forms

Google Forms is a great platform for creating all kinds of simple quiz and review activities. One of the features of Google Forms that is often overlooked is the “go to section based on answer” setting. When you use that setting correctly you can send students to watch a review video when they answer a […]

21 TED-Ed Lessons About Animals

Writing yesterday’s post about how animals see in the dark inspired me to look through the TED-Ed catalog for more interesting lessons about animals. As I browsed through the catalog I found lessons about how dogs “see” with their noses, why blue whales are so big, how ant colonies work, and eighteen other interesting lessons […]

Time Is Money – And Other Short Lessons on Money

The majority of the high school students that I’ve had over the years has been engaged by personal finance lessons. This is probably due in large part to the fact that high school age is when many students get their first real jobs. For many students that first pay check comes with excitement followed by […]

How Do Animals See In the Dark?

How Do Animals See In the Dark? is a TED-Ed lesson that can help your students understand why their pet cats and other animals are more active at night than during the day. In the video students learn how the eyes of various animals have adapted to provide them with night vision that is far […]

Smarthistory Offers a Crash Course in Art History

Smarthistory offers is a free online alternative to expensive art history textbooks. Smarthistory features more than just images of notable works of art. The combination of video lessons, text articles, and audio lessons about eras and themes in art history is what makes Smarthistory a valuable resource. Students can browse all of the resources of Smarthistory by […]

A Couple of Short Lessons About Labor Day

Labor Day marks the unofficial end of summer in North America. Schools that started in August had a long weekend and the rest will start this week. If you’re looking for a short explanation of Labor Day to share with students, take a look at the two videos below. History of the Holidays is a […]

Three Tools That Help Students Take Notes While Watching Videos

Creating flipped lessons in which students answer questions about a video that you make them watch can be one way to check whether or not they watched a video. Another way is to have them simply record their own observations and or write their own questions while watching a video. The following three tools are […]

TurboNote – Take & Share Notes While Watching Videos

TurboNote is a great Chrome extension that enables you to take notes while watching a video in the same web browser window. Unlike some similar extensions, TurboNote isn’t limited to working with YouTube videos. TurboNote can be used on Vimeo, Netflix, and Facebook videos. With the TurboNote extension installed you can take notes while watching […]

Remember to Sleep – A Lesson for Students

As the new school year gets going there will be plenty of students and teachers who are adjusting to a new sleeping schedule. It can be tempting to stay up late to get “just one more thing” done. We’re actually better off going to bed and getting up early than we are if stay up […]

The Threat of Invasive Species

When you drive into my home state of Maine two of the first signs you’ll notice are a sign to watch for moose and a sign banning the importation of firewood. The reason for the moose crossing sign is fairly self-explanatory. The reason for the ban on importing firewood may not be so obvious. Importing […]

A Good Lesson on Hurricanes

The Atlantic hurricane season season is here and It’s Okay To Be Smart (produced by PBS) has a new video lesson about hurricanes. By watching Hurricanes: Engines of Destruction you can learn how the Coriolis effect influences the direction in which hurricanes rotate, the role of heat in hurricane formation, and the origin of the […]

Next Vista Launches New Selection of ELL Videos

Next Vista for Learning is a video sharing that I’ve featured dozens of times over the years. Next Vista for Learning is different from other educational video sharing sites because all videos are reviewed before publication and all videos have to teach some kind of short lesson. Students and teachers can submit videos for publication […]

Displaying YouTube Without Distractions

In my previous post I shared the idea of using extended display mode to choose what is and isn’t displayed on the projector in your classroom. If one of the things that you want to display is a YouTube video, you’ll want to make sure that you don’t accidentally display the “related” videos that appear […]

HipHughes History Celebrates 300 Video Lessons

This week Keith Hughes celebrated the publication of the 300th video on his massively popular HipHughes History channel. His latest video is a short explanation of the flipped classroom model and how it uses it. That video is embedded below. Along with his 300th video, this week Keith published a Google Document that lists all […]

How to Move from Zaption to EDpuzzle In Three Steps (Zaption is closing)

A couple of weeks ago when I shared the news that Zaption is closing I also shared some suggestions for alternatives to using Zaption. One of those suggestions was to try EDpuzzle. The folks at EDpuzzle saw that post and created a video for followers of this blog who would like to switch from Zaption […]

Vizia – Create Interactive Video Quizzes

Vizia is a free tool for creating video-based quizzes. On Vizia you an import a video from YouTube or from Wistia and then add questions along the timeline of the video. You can ask multiple choice questions as well as short answer/ open-response questions. Adding a poll question into the video is also a possibility […]

How Much Does It Cost to Run for President?

Now that the 2016 U.S. Presidential campaign is in full swing it’s a good time to take a look at how much it costs to run for President. In the video below the folks at Brain Stuff have done a nice job of explaining the cost of running a campaign. More resources for teaching and […]

How Fireworks Work

Fireworks are popping around my little town of Woodstock, Maine this evening. To my dogs the sounds of fireworks are the sounds of the sky falling. The upside of hearing the amateur fireworks displays is that it reminded me of a couple of videos about the science of fireworks. If you or your children are […]

Handy, Overlooked YouTube Features

YouTube offers a bunch of handy editing tools that often go overlooked by users. One of those is the option to rotate videos that have been shot in vertical mode when they should have been shot horizontally. Another great feature is the face blurring tool built into the video editor. You can learn about those […]

Khan Academy Announces a Talent Search

Do you enjoy making instructional videos for your students or the general public? Can you break complex topics into small, digestible chunks for others to understand? If so, you may be interested in entering the Khan Academy Talent Search contest. The contest runs now through August 1, 2016. Ten finalists will be chosen from all […]

A Great Video Explanation of Onomatopoeia

Next Vista for Learning recently wrapped-up a student video contest. One of the winning videos was Demonstrating Onomatopoeia. The video does a fantastic job of explaining what onomatopoeia is while also demonstrating how its proper use can enhance your writing. The video is embedded below. The video can be downloaded on Next Vista for Learning. […]

theLearnia Offers a Good Way to Create Video Lessons

theLearnia is a free service that I reviewed about four years ago when it was primarily a social network built around video lessons. This week I took another look at theLearnia and learned that the site is now focused on helping teachers create video-based lessons. On theLearnia you can create video lessons up to fifteen […]

A Crash Course in Physics

On the last day of March Crash Course launched a new series of videos about physics. The series now contains seven videos on friction, integrals, derivatives, Newton’s Laws, and motion. The playlist is embedded below. For some physics lessons that younger students might enjoy, take a look at NASA’s Rocket Science 101. To use these […]

Get Inspiration for Video Projects and Help a Non-profit at the Same Time

Over the weekend I featured a new video submission to Next Vista for Learning. That video was a submission for the latest Next Vista video contest. The contest is called Creative Sprouts. The submission period is closed and voting is now open. Next Vista, a non-profit, is looking for some help with the judging of […]

How to Create an Interactive Series of Videos

Earlier today people who are subscribed to my YouTube channel may have received a notification of a new video posted. If you watched it (all 12 seconds of it) you might have wondered, “what the heck is Richard doing?” I posted it during a presentation this morning. The presentation was about making videos with students. […]

Why Do Price Tags End In .99? – A Psychology and Consumer Education Lesson

Take a stroll through any supermarket or browse your favorite online retailer and you’ll see prices ending in .99 more often than not. Why is that? What’s the psychology behind that kind of pricing? BrainStuff has the answers to those questions and more in a new video Why Do Price Tags End in .99? The […]

Why Do Some Birds Eat Dirt? – National Geographic Explains

National Geographic’s YouTube channel includes a fun playlist of short videos about interesting science facts. The playlist is called Today I Learned or TIL for short. In the playlist you will find videos that answer questions like “why is the ocean salty?” and “why do some birds eat dirt?” The answer to “why do some […]

20 Videos and a Poster Explaining Logical Fallacies

Last November I featured a series of videos from PBS Learning Channel that contained eight concise explanations of logical fallacies. This morning, thanks to Larry Ferlazzo, I learned about another series of video explanations of logical fallacies. Wireless Philosophy offers a playlist of twelve videos on logical fallacies. The playlist is embedded below. The fallacies […]

Why Are Airplane Engines So Big? – How Jet Engines Work #STEM

Minute Physics recently published a great new video about jet engines. In Why Are Airplane Engines So Big? viewers can learn why jet engines have gotten larger over time, why they biggest engines don’t always go on the biggest or fastest airplanes, and the basic principles of jet propulsion. The video briefly explains the mathematics […]

Animal Migrations in Yellowstone National Park

National Geographic recently published a great video containing remarkable footage of elk, pronghorn antelope, and mule deer migrations in Yellowstone National Park. The short video describes the length and direction of the migrations made by these beautiful animals. Make sure you turn up the volume to hear the sounds of the elk, mule deer, and […]

Another Great Resource for Learning About Mount Everest

On Wednesday I shared my list of resources for teaching and learning about Mount Everest. This afternoon, thanks to Larry Ferlazzo, I learned about another good resource for learning about Mount Everest. Why is Mount Everest so Tall? is a new TED-Ed lesson in which students learn why the peak of Everest is so high, […]

Riddle Me This – 7 TED-Ed Lessons Based on Riddles

Earlier this week I shared a playlist of TED-Ed lessons about how the human body works. In responses to that playlist Lisa Winer sent me the suggestion to check out a TED-Ed lesson that she contributed to creating. That lesson is the Locker Riddle. In that lesson students have to use mathematics and logical reasoning […]

How to Clip and Share a Portion of a YouTube Video

Online videos can be quite useful for reiterating a lesson to your students, for inspiring thought and conversation, and for introducing a new concept to your students. The struggle we have sometimes is finding a video that gets to the point quickly. And sometimes we don’t need students to watch all of a TED Talk […]

What Would Happen if You Didn’t Drink Water? – And 12 Other TED-Ed Lessons About the Human Body

What Would Happen if You Didn’t Drink Water? is the title of latest TED-Ed lesson. The lesson addresses items like how much water should a person drink, how much water a body loses during an average day, and the effects of dehydration. The lesson also addresses what can happen when you consume too much water. […]

XtraMath Helps Teachers Help Students Learn Math in ASL

XtraMath is a free service designed to help teachers and parents help their students learn basic mathematics skills. The service provides an online environment in which students complete practice activities that are recorded and shared with their teachers and parents. The lessons provided by XtraMath come in video format. Recently, XtraMath added support for ASL. […]

Zaption Expands Free Options for Creating Flipped Lessons

Zaption is a popular tool for creating video-based lessons and quizzes. The service operates on a freemium model in which they offer a mix of free and paid options. Last week Zaption announced that the free options have been expanded. Teachers can now utilize all of the video lesson creation tools that Zaption offers. Those […]

Six Tools for Creating Videos on Chromebooks

As I’ve written many times over the years, creating videos is one of my favorite classroom projects. Recently, I shared some of my tips for planning classroom video projects. Shortly after publishing those tips I was asked for a recommendation for creating videos on Chromebooks. Here are some of my go-to video creation tools to […]

Vibby – Annotate YouTube & Vimeo Videos on Your Own Site

Last fall I wrote a couple of posts about a new video annotation tool called Vibby. Over the last few months the Vibby developers have been hard at work to add some useful new features for teachers. You can now use Vibby to annotate Vimeo videos as well as YouTube videos. To annotate a YouTube […]

More Than 40 Alternatives to YouTube

3 Tips for Using YouTube Videos in Your Classroom was one of the most popular posts of the week on FreeTech4Teachers.com. Those tips are all well and good if you can access YouTube in your classroom. If you cannot access YouTube in your classroom then you will want to consult my list of more than […]

Three Tips for Planning Video Projects

I love video projects because the entire process of developing project ideas, creating the video, and sharing the video engages almost all students. Over the years I have helped hundreds (maybe thousands) of students and teachers create videos in their classrooms. If you haven’t tried making videos with your students or you have and it […]

Mushing Explained – Out on the Iditarod Trail

The Iditarod concluded this week with Dallas Seavey winning for the fourth time in five years. Before the race started I shared some resources for following along on the trail and for learning about the dogs and people on the race. Yesterday, through The Adventure Blog I learned about another good resource for learning about […]

Origo One – One Minute Math Lessons

Origo One is a new YouTube channel offering one minute math lessons for teachers and students. The first few videos in the series seem to be aimed at elementary school teachers. In the first video that I watched Origo One explains why teaching the “use ten” strategy is better than having students count on their […]

Best Job Ever – Short Stories About Outdoor Jobs #bestjobever

National Geographic’s YouTube channel has a relatively new playlist called #bestjobever.  The playlist features short stories about people who have interesting jobs that are primarily in the outdoors. These are primarily jobs incorporating some kind of conservation and or awareness missions. The playlist is embedded below. The first video in the series is about photographing […]

3 Tips for Using YouTube Videos In Your Classroom

In my workshop YouTube, It’s Not Just Cats & Khan Academy I share a lot of tips and tricks for safely using YouTube in your classroom. One of the topics that I always talk about is how to share and display videos. Here are three of the more popular tips from that workshop. 1. Remove […]

Pindex – Another “Pinterest for Education” Site

Pindex is a new site that like many before it is attempting to position itself as “Pinterest for education.” On Pindex (still in private beta) users will be able to pin and share educational videos and infographics. Where Pindex seems to be attempting to separate itself from similar platforms is in offering digital badges for […]

A Crash Course on Foreign Policy

Last fall PBS Digital Studios and Crash Course launched a series on government and politics. The 50th and last installment in the series is about foreign policy. The from trade to human rights to environmental concerns the video covers most facets of what foreign policy is and how governments interact with each other. The video […]

Three Tools Students Can Use to Add Annotations to Videos

When we talk about flipped lessons it often involves a lot of heavy lifting on a teacher’s part. From finding a video to adding questions to the video, it is a time-consuming process and in the end we’re still not always sure if the students actually watched the video or they just guessed at the […]

Five Tools for Sharing Portions of Videos

Online videos can be quite useful for reiterating a lesson to your students, for inspiring thought and conversation, and for introducing a new concept to your students. The struggle we have sometimes is finding a video that gets to the point quickly. And sometimes we don’t need students to watch all of a TED Talk […]

PowerPoint Playbook – Animating Numbered Lists

Last fall I featured Tom Richey’s free PowerPoint and video collection for AP US History and AP European History students. Tom’s YouTube channel is full of excellent tutorials for history students. In many of those videos you see Tom’s face in the corner of the screen while PowerPoint slides support his points. Now Tom has […]

How to Blur Faces & Objects in YouTube Videos

Sharing video highlights of school events can be a great way to build community interest in the good things that are happening in your school. The challenge that many teachers and administrators run into is making sure that the privacy requests of parents are honored. In the past YouTube offered an automatic face blurring tool, […]

Growth Mindset – Big Ideas for the Classroom

Last month ClassDojo launched a new video series that they are calling Big Ideas. The series is all about growth mindset as it pertains to classrooms. The series introduces students, parents, and teachers to big ideas or trends in education. ClassDojo’s Big Ideas does this through the use of videos and accompanying discussion guides. The […]

How to Create Video-based Quizzes on Blubbr

Blubbr is a neat quiz creation service that enables you to create interactive quizzes that are based on YouTube clips. Your quizzes can be about anything of your choosing. The structure of the quizzes has a viewer watch a short clip then answer a multiple choice question about the clip. Viewers know right away if […]

Rate Some Educational Videos and Inspire Your Students

Next Vista for Learning is my favorite place for students and teachers to share the educational videos that they create. Throughout the year Next Vista hosts a number of video creation contests for students and teachers. The latest contest just wrapped-up and now Next Vista is looking for a little help in picking the winners. […]

How to Create a Video-based Poll

ClipChoose is a free polling tool that I featured in a blog post last month. On ClipChoose you can create a poll that is based on a comparison of two or more videos. In the video embedded below I demonstrate how to create a video-based poll on ClipChoose. Applications for Education ClipChoose could be a […]

The First Presidential Election – A Hip Hughes History Lesson

A few weeks ago in my post about the Electoral College I included a list of lessons about Presidential Elections from 1900 through 2012. Those lessons were created by Keith Hughes. This week he released another lesson. Keith’s latest lesson is about the first Presidential election. In three minutes Keith runs-down what made the first […]

How to Make Your Writing Funnier – And 21 Other Writing Lessons

The Writer’s Workshop is a TED-Ed playlist featuring short lessons on writing. Some of the lessons are on basic things like When to Use Me, Myself, or I while other lessons are of a more conceptual nature like How to Build a Fictional World. The latest lesson added to The Writer’s Workshop is How to […]

Valentine’s Day Science and Statistics

With Valentine’s Day coming up this weekend it’s a good time looking for at science and statistics related to the day. The following video from It’s Okay To Be Smart (produced by PBS Digital Studios) explains why humans kiss, the history of symbols associated with kissing, and some cultural views of kissing. When I saw […]

Two Good Tools for Building Online Discussions Around Videos

Watching videos then answering questions about them is the basic premise of a lot of flipped classroom lessons. To take that idea to higher level, invite students to ask questions and or and notations to videos that you have shared with them. Vialogues and VideoNot.es are excellent tools for building online discussions around shared videos. […]

Today I Learned – Fun Facts Featured in National Geographic Videos

National Geographic’s YouTube channel includes a fun playlist of short videos about interesting science facts. The playlist, called Today I Learned or TIL for short, is comprised of 60 to 90 second videos on things like “why is the ocean salty?” and “how chameleons change color.” The playlist is embedded below. Applications for Education The […]

12 Lessons on How the Human Body Works

Last winter I started a playlist of TED-Ed video lessons about how the human body works. I started the playlist because I wanted a list that was a bit more refined than what I was finding on the TED-Ed website. The playlist started with five videos and with today’s addition of the lesson on carbohydrates […]

What Are Carbohydrates and How Do They Impact Your Health? – TED-Ed Lesson

How Do Carbohydrates Impact Your Health? is the focus of the latest TED-Ed lesson added to my playlist of TED-Ed Lessons about the human body. How Do Carbohydrates Impact Your Health? explains what carbohydrates are, common food sources of carbohydrates, and how are bodies use carbohydrates. The lesson also explains what can happen to our […]

The Difference Between Stocks and Bonds

Last night I watched The Big Short starring Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling, Christian Bale, and Brad Pitt. I enjoyed the movie. For those who aren’t familiar with The Big Short, it is a movie about how the housing and stock markets crashed in 2008 and how a few shrewd investors benefited from the crash. Watching […]

10 Good Video Sources for Social Studies Teachers and Students

Last week I shared a list of good sources for mathematics videos. That post was one of the most popular posts of the month despite being published during a school vacation week. Seeing the results of that list has prompted me to share lists for other subject areas. Here is my list of good video […]