YouTube


 Don't you just hate the songs that are so repetitive? I remember singing the //The Twelve Days of Christmas// as a child and thinking it would NEVER end! BUT have you heard and seen it performed by Straight No Chaser? This is my favorite group this Christmas season! Guess what? They are on YouTube.

Straight No Chaser and the 12 Days of Christmas
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In our district YouTube is blocked for students but not for teachers. Show your students this video of Straight No Chaser and the //12 Days of Christmas// as a special treat! Talk to your students about what it takes to pull something like this off. This could lead to a discussion of teamwork, communication, body language, friendship, perseverance, and probably many other topics.

YouTube
I'm constantly amazed at the number of resources that are now at our fingertips! YouTube has thousands of videos that are free for us to use. As we learned back in college, you should always preview any videos you plan on showing your students! That is still the rule! Think of a topic you are currently studying. Search YouTube for that topic. You may find videos that fit perfectly (well, almost) with your curriculum! Some of these videos are created by teachers for their own classrooms. It's like sharing your own lesson plans and materials with anyone who wants them! Want to learn how to use your document camera? Search YouTube! media type="youtube" key="zr6xKiWOVhU" height="340" width="560" align="center"

By now you should have noticed one of the great things about YouTube, that is, they can be embedded in a wiki, a blog, in Moodle, and on web pages. You can embed the videos in your own wiki to use in whole class instruction. The students don't have to see the YouTube site at all. Just like in this wiki page that I've made for you. Or you can just go to YouTube and preview/watch the videos there!

 Propaganda
 Do you teach your students about propaganda and the power of persuasion? Search YouTube for commercials. Have your students identify which type of persuasion was used in the commercial. Here's a good one to use to identify several types of persuasion. media type="youtube" key="UTSdUOC8Kac" height="344" width="425" align="center"

 Besides YouTube there are several other video storage sites. Check out School Tube and Teacher Tube. These are sites that are much like YouTube but more educationally sound. You might find that these sites are opened in your district. I'm showcasing YouTube simply because it has so much variety of resources. If you are going to have your students create videos, you'll most likely want to post them on school tube. Have your students watch videos on SchoolTube for ideas on creating their own videos. All of these sites will give you an embed code so you can put them in Moodle or on your blog, etc.

John Costilla has posted the top 100 YouTube Videos for teachers. Please check this out! If you don't typically use YouTube, you'll be amazed!