At the Movies

I love movies. Prior to deciding on a teaching career, I was a film student. Who doesn't love movies? Those were the best days in high school, you have to admit. If my memory serves me correctly, they went something like this:

10:01 - Teacher shushes everybody until we actually listen
10:04 - It is announced that today, we will be watching a movie. Pandemonium ensues.
10:06 - After regaining momentary control of the class, the teacher threatens to take the movie away and lecture the whole time if we all don't just shut up.
10:10 - After fiddling with the antiquated VCR (what?), the movie starts and begins auto-tracking.
10:11 - With the lights out, the class relatively silent, and an authoritative voice droning in the background, I gently put my head down on my desk and. . . pay very close attention.

The truth is, I honestly do believe that videos can be used to help facilitate learning. There is something about the combination of both visual and aural input that jump starts the learning elves lounging about in my brain (Yes, learning elves--don't judge me).

This is a website with relatively short videos on just about any US History subject, from just before the Civil War to the War on Terror.




To be completely upfront and honest, it's kind of a good thing that they're short clips, because they can be fairly dry. Nevertheless, they could provide a welcome break from lecturing, or could allow a couple of minutes for a teacher to compose himself. I could definitely see myself using this to punctuate a point I had previously made in a lecture. One of the things I like is how it shows some of the key points on the screen during some of the videos. This would make it relatively easy for me to quickly do an oral quiz or just to review the main ideas immediately following the video.