Plant eats animal

This YouTube clip of the Venus fly trap was used as a hook to engage students when learning about carnivorous plants. It really works to gain student interest as the students see this natural phenomenon in real time. When the students see this in real action, they are more interested in the science behind how the plant closes on it's prey. As this is a short clip, it can be replayed many times to help students construct their understandings from the teacher's drawings and explanations.It prompts students to ask many questions such as how the plant consumes the animal.

Many students are engaged by short YouTube clips of nature, but they can be overused and sometimes the duration can be too lengthy. When presenting YouTube clips to the class it is wise to take the safety precautions of always downloading them first. They should never be played live as is the nature with the internet that some inappropriate material can end up being shown to your students. There is a great ICT tool which is called KeepVid that you can use to safegaurd yourself against such problems. This is the secure way to save your YouTubes to be replayed in the classroom. All you need to do is copy the URL of the YouTube and paste it on Keepvid and then click download. Once you have done this you have your YouTube ready to go-no waiting for buffering. Keepvid is also free

After reading Sheena's blog, i discovered two other great sources for educational video resources. TeacherTube.com and Teachers.tv are websites which i will be accessing in the future for teaching ideas.
My first imovie



Reflection-
The Making of digital videos can be determined by the year level of your students. In saying this the earlier the students learn how to use the basic functions, the earlier they can produce a basic movie like my first imovie. In the Prep classroom i would be inclined to use it to record their learning journey from term to term. In higher year levels, the students could begin to make their own videos to record their journey or present a culminating activity. Video clips can also be used as stimulus for learners in higher levels. A creative writing exercise can begin with a digital video clip with an unfinished ending. The students can then take their own spin on where the story goes. Prensky (2005) talks about using methods like this in the classroom being more in line with modern approaches to engage students.
As the cost of a digital video camera can exclude its use in many instances, standard digital camera images can be made into a movie format. Sometimes this can have more impact with well-chosen images matched to a suitable soundtrack and text on some or all of the images.



Reference

Frog eaten by Venus fly trap retrieved from http://www.youtube.com
Keepvid retrieved from http://keepvid.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DqO7GieoeP3s

Presnky, M. (2005). Engage me or enrage me: What doday's learners demand. [eletronic resource] Retrieved from http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/erm0553.pdf