Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Cool Tool for School

This is a tool i found on Google and it is in my mind really helpful to History and Biology education teachers.  Essentially, the site is a helpful tool that streams videos on from that is in association with the Discovery Channel.  This allows the teacher to look up material they need for a topic that the discovery channel did a bit on and voila it is found and streaming rather than the school buy the movie for the teacher or the teacher buy it.  This can also be accessed outside the classroom for kids that are sick, and or they want extra help with a topic they can re-watch the video to consolidate their thoughts.  Kids can also further their own particular interest in a certain area.  In this way teaching can occur outside the classroom, and this tool can also help audio visual learners like me.  To understand what i mean take a battle in a war.  By watching a documentary you see what the uniforms looks like, sees the strategy plan on a map, watch re-enactment of the fighting, and the end result with some first person accounts of what happened.  For Biology you can see the life cycle of penguins or what have you.  Seeing something helps build a picture in your head which will lead to further grasping of the material. 
This site works as simply as typing in the name of the program and finding it on the list.  Quick and done and the best part is that it is good material, accredited by the Discovery Channel. 
A drawback is the possibility of students getting bored with the material and not paying attention to the videos.  Other than that this resource kicks some serious butt, and I would use it to describe battles and just to get a sense of how people lived during a certain time, so the students can relate to the material.

1 comment:

  1. Even though you made a good point on how the material could end up being a draw back, I feel that it would still be useful.

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