This blog post is a great example of communication through the world of blogs. I follow Richard Byrne's
Free Technology for Teachers blog, and he apparently follows
Ken Halla's US history teachers blog. Here's a bit of his
post on a PBS project of U.S. Presidents in 60 seconds:
60 Second Lessons on the Presidents of the United States
Thanks to Ken Halla's US History Teachers Blog I recently learned about PBS Learning Media's new series of short videos about all of the Presidents of the United States. In the series there is one short (60-90 seconds) video about each president for a total of 44 videos.
I (Joyce here again) checked out George Washington - wow! They packed a lot of information into 60 seconds! If you have a YouTube account, I would suggest selecting to "subscribe" to the playlist because it makes it easier to find again. Here's the link to PBS Learning Media: 60 second presidents which lets you watch the videos without the YouTube junk. I'll post it on my content area resource symbaloo as well.
So I loved the videos, great pictures to aid in understanding, clever writing to relate to this generation of students, and clear and calm voice from the narrator. My only critique was the fact that since the video us only a minute long, the narrator rushed through the content. I think some of our students might be overwhelmed with that pace- but overall liked it as an intro to a new unit. Perhaps we could even have students create their own modeled after this as a project?
ReplyDeleteJoyce and Trina,
ReplyDeleteEven though there is a lot of info packed into a minute, I think the kids would like to watch these videos. They are always running over to the presidents' chart to see who was president when we are talking about a particular event. If students have a little background about a particular person or time, that's even better.