The Truth is Free...

(...as are so many things on the web these days (or at least seemingly so :))

Thus readeth the tag line of this amazing site for free documentaries that a friend shared last night. Freedocumentaries.org has about 125 documentaries that are also categorized by themes and regions of the world.

I spotted some well-known ones like those by Michael Moore and the Century of Self series from BBC, but there are several others that I know I will be watching over the coming days (and nights). WE: Arundhati Roy seems promising, as also this one titled The Slow Poisoning of India (it's all about one's context, isn't it?) -

"a 26-minute documentary film depicting the effects of modern pesticide use on local farmers. India is one of the largest users of pesticide in Asia and also one of the largest manufactures. Farmers often use the wrong chemicals, while others overuse."

Most of the documentaries load from Google Video or youtube (the shorter teasers/trailers) so I guess all this site does is point to all the freely available documentaries already up on Google Video. (Just an educated guess that it was not the other way around - it wasn't these guys that put up the stuff on Google Video and then pointed to it from here...)

Which made me curious about the rationale behind freedocumentaries.org (on their 'About Us' page) -

"a site where anyone with an internet connection can watch a movie to educate themselves or simply explore another perspective whenever they please. These movies aren't just for education but are also for entertainment.

As a secondary objective freedocumentaires.org allows independent filmmakers to have their message heard by viewers that they may not normally reach.

Our goal is to have everyone that watches a film at freedocumentaries.org learn something; whether it be a new perspective on a topic, simply understanding a conflict, or being more accepting of a certain belief system. We are proud to say that the vast majority of people that watch our films are glad they did so. In fact many people become addicted to watching documentaries after seeing a movie on our site."

Whatever the rationale, I'm glad for this effort, and hope teachers and parents will use it to educate themselves, their students/kids, and use these to trigger discussions and debate....

Digital Storytelling using Microsoft Photo Story

I've talked a fair bit about getting kids to engage in creative storytelling using the myriad digital tools we have at our disposal today. For the Digital Storytelling workshops I conducted for middle school kids this past academic year, I decided to go with Microsoft Photo Story (freely downloadable) instead of Windows Movie Maker (also freely available). The school does not use Macs else iMovie would've been my hands-down choice.

Photo Story is a simple, easy-to-learn tool that puts together images, with transitions, and background sound which could be music or even voice-overs recorded in Photo Story itself.

Even though the kids spent some time picking up a little bit of Adobe Photoshop (which now has a free "express" web version...yay!) for basic cropping and image manipulation, and Audacity for sound recording and mixing (also an open source free Audio Editor :)), in the end all the students used Photo Story alone to put together their images, cool transitions, music and voice-overs to produce (with very little effort) some fantastic digital stories.

Powerpoint is passe, people, movies and digital stories are the new forms of show-n-tell!

Don't just take my word for it ... see for yourself one 11-year old 6th grader's sweet digital story....

Animoto for Education

I've been going a little crazy sharing the animoto videos my son Sidhanth and I whipped up in a matter of minutes (that's what's so cool about animoto) a couple of days ago. I put them up here (see the last few posts), on educatorslog.in, on classtroom 2.0, as well as my facebook profile!

When you stumble upon a good thing, SHARE IT, I say!

Receiving family videos made by my sister soon after I posted mine was such a thrill! Anyway, the best news at the end of all this came in an email from Rebecca Brooks of Animoto...they have just launched Animoto for Education whereby they're offering FULL-ACCESS to educators (the free version restricts videos to 30 secs)!

Which brings us to the use of Animoto videos in the classroom. How could teachers use this tool? It would be a neat way to introduce a new unit with a snapshot of all that a teacher intends to cover. Videos made by students could be part of culminating activities at the end of a unit. It's a great way to capture a field trip or a workshop or an event or the highlights of an academic year to put up on a school website, teacher or student blog.

Since the videos are so fast paced, I guess they cannot really replace traditional slideshows for teaching even if the background music did have a voice-over by a teacher or student. The great thing is the no-entry-level-skill-barrier which means that kids as young as 7 or 8 could put these together, or teachers who are not too tech-savvy, and would otherwise never venture out to make videos or even slideshows.

Sid n Sam's E-Waste Efforts

My sons Sidhanth & Samarth (who've just completed 7th grade and 4th grade resp.) have been pretty active this past year spreading awareness about e-waste (what is e-waste? why is it harmful? what can ordinary citizens do?) in their neighbourhood (Sadashivanagar) as well as their school here in Bangalore. (Read it in Sidhanth's own words on his blog).

Sid and Sam spoke to every class about it. Sid made posters and set up collection boxes in school - one in the Elementary and one in the Senior school, and Sam co-ordinated collections in the Elementary school.

They have connected with a local voluntary organization that co-ordinates e-waste collection in Bangalore called Saahas, for dropping off the collections from the neighbourhood and their school. Saahas even invited them on a field trip to e-Parisaraa - Bangalore's only e-waste re-cycling center.

Here's a short video Sidhanth made on Animoto that describes in 30 seconds their E-Waste Efforts. Way to go, boys!

Ryan International School Workshops (Taking ANIMOTO for a whirl)

History Comes Alive in the Classroom! (Courtesy YouTube)

If I were a History teacher today, I would probably be spending every spare moment on YouTube scouring the collections for videos relevant to my curriculum, to make History truly come alive in the classroom. I would probably teach history through watching those videos and discussions before and after.

[In case you don't have (convenient) access to the Internet in your school or classroom or if your school has blocked youtube, see my post here on Anytime, Anywhere Access to YouTube Videos so you can download & burn the videos for sharing with your students.]

Take the Social Studies curriculum in middle/high school in India, for example. The broad themes deal with -

• Indian History - Ancient (Indus Valley, Guptas, Mauryas, Alexander), Medieval (Muslim & Mughal Empires) & Modern (British Rule & post-independence)
  
  
• European History - Ancient (Roman & Greek empires), Medieval (France, Byzantine, Crusades, Renaissance), Modern (Nationalism in Europe, and the world wars
  
  
• (Rest of the World) History - Asia (Mongols, Indochina, Vietnam War, China, Russia), America (Discovery, colonies, Independence, Civil War)
  

For almost each of these topics, YouTube has a wealth of videos made from credible sources (although that may be open to debate, perhaps in a Social Studies class itself!) such as BBC, History Channel, Discovery Channel, and others.

I've been building a pretty comprehensive database, and will share it as a Youtube playlist sometime in the not-too-distant future. For now, here's a sampling of topics on which I have found great material on youtube -

* Indus Valley (Harappa, Mohen-jo-daro)
* Mughal Empire (including separate episodes on Babur, Akbar & Shah Jehan)
* The last Days of the Raj & Partition
* Real footage from the days of the British Rule (including 15th August 1947)
* Alexander in India
* Ancient Eygpt
* Huns & Mongols
* South Indian Temples
* American Civil War
* The Crusades
* Byzantium
* The French Revolution
* World War I & II

The Story of Stuff

If you have not seen this already, The Story of Stuff is a must-see amazing, entertaining, informative 20 minute animation video by Annie Leonard.

"From its extraction through sale, use and disposal, all the stuff in our lives affects communities at home and abroad, yet most of this is hidden from view. The Story of Stuff is a 20-minute, fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns. The Story of Stuff exposes the connections between a huge number of environmental and social issues, and calls us together to create a more sustainable and just world. It'll teach you something, it'll make you laugh, and it just may change the way you look at all the stuff in your life forever."

Here's a teaser from YouTube---

India Video Portal

Another source for excellent videos that can be used in the classroom - this one specifically on videos of India.

indiavideo.org is a 'Video Encyclopedia' on India created by Invis Multimedia in association with United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), New Delhi Office. "The site is an online culture atlas with professionally made high quality video clips and movies of the life, culture, heritage, festivals and traditional art forms of India. Well researched texts and useful India information and content are the unique features of this leading India website. The site has got tourism, travel and tour related films."

The videos I saw were rather short, although well-shot. There are ratings, tagging and comments features although I saw no videos that have been rated or been commented on, and the tag cloud is pretty sparse - maybe it's early days yet. Videos have been classified into various categories like Architecture, Art, Festivals, Heritage, flora and fauna, land and people. Each video has a paragraph of text describing the video - a very useful feature.

Currently the only states that seem to have been covered are Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh and Jammu & Kashmir. Hopefully the project will continue long enough to cover the rest of the country as well :)

Perhaps the videos could have used some high-quality voice-overs instead of the soothing Indian elevator music that became quite tedious to listen to after a few videos!

Here's a link to one on the Southern Hill Myna. Enjoy!

Anytime, Anywhere Access to YouTube Videos

[As posted on educatorslog.in]

Ever wondered if you could download YouTube videos to show to your class or to people where you did not have Internet access? Well, read on...

I'd written a post a few weeks ago titled "YouTube...TeacherTube...Video in Education" where I discussed the use of YouTube and videos in education, and wrote that all a teacher needed was a computer with access to the internet. Well, that's still true, but guess what! that access does not even have to necessarily be in the school or classroom. There are ways, and really EASY ways, actually, to download YouTube videos into pretty much any format for viewing on a Windows or Mac or any other machine.

The most convenient tool that I have used is called vConvert - which allows you to do the conversion to a desirable format right on their site at http://vconvert.net, (all you have to do is copy-paste the url or 'web address' of the YouYube video) and then download the output to your machine which you can then carry on a pen/thumb drive (or 'memory stick') to your classroom or any other room where you could play it on a computer! It couldn't get easier than this!

[I found this useful tip on this blog. Bob Sprankle, the author of the post is an enthusiastic teacher and "Technology Integrator" in Maine, who has kids as young as third-graders creating videos and audio broadcasts (called podcasts) that can then be shared with the world on iTunes or any other podcasting site on the Internet. Thanks, Bob!]

YouTube...TeacherTube...Video in Education

[As posted on educatorslog.in]

In the process of checking out Varni's video link on YouTube for "School Chale Hum", I also found a link to the "Ek Chidiya" film which I posted as a resource just now.

It got me thinking about the use of YouTube as such an easily accessible resource for the classroom. I'm sure there are a lot of useful video clips already up on YouTube - we have posted some ourselves and shared some others here whenever we've discovered them.

A little bit of "googling" on "youtube in education" led me to "TeacherTube" - a site dedicated to YouTube-like sharing of videos that are all entirely aimed for use in education! Here's what I got on them from their site --

"After beta testing for almost two months, TeacherTube officially launched on March 6, 2007. Our goal is to provide an online community for sharing instructional videos. We seek to fill a need for a more educationally focused, safe venue for teachers, schools, and home learners. It is a site to provide anytime, anywhere professional development with teachers teaching teachers. As well, it is a site where teachers can post videos designed for students to view in order to learn a concept or skill."

Videos are a powerful medium for teaching and they don't not need much investment on the part of schools. The barriers, I think, have been the lack of good films for use in the classroom - especially in India. In the US and other Western countries there is a huge repository of good educational videos produced by National Geographic, PBS (Nova series) and others. Schools use them on a routine basis. These are not so easily accessible in India and are pretty expensive too, for use in India.

With YouTube and TeacherTube (and even Google Video where you can put up longer films) now, one does not need much to use videos in teaching - a teacher does not even need a separate video/cd/dvd player - all one needs is access to the Internet - which schools should certainly look into investing in, if they have not already...and not just for use in the principal's office, but in teacher staff rooms, special A/V screening rooms, student computer labs, and even classrooms, as well.