Tuesday, July 21, 2015

Friends with Fins: Informational Videos



I'm always looking for good videos for my students.  As we expand our understanding of what it means to be a reader in this digital age, I know videos are an important part of learning.  I want my students to have lots of experience with quality video.  I've heard over and over again from my students that they enjoy watching video for entertainment, but they don't really know how to watch video to learn. So I know part of my work is helping them to read video.  I think lots of kids pick up bits of info when they are watching for entertainment, but finding good informational videos for kids is sometimes a challenge.  Short videos that are crafted well so that kids can learn information as well as study the video for the craft are things I am always on the lookout for.

Recently I noticed that Jaclyn Friedlander, a Marine Life and Ocean Conservation Expert has been adding weekly video episodes to her blog. (I interviewed Jaclyn on our blog about her picture books a while back.)

The Friends with Fins videos are PERFECT for my students. They are short, engaging and packed with lots of fascinating information.  Many connect to our science standards and I'll watch them a bit more closely to see which align with our science standards.  So much of our life science is about habitats and animal adaptations and so much information connected to that is embedded in these videos.

I also plan to use the videos in Reading Workshop as we think about learning from video clips. And I will use them in writing workshop as they will be great mentor texts for informational writing. They are crafted well and there is lots to study as a writer/moviemaker.  The way that Jaclyn shares information is accessible to young learners.  There are so many possibilities for these videos.  I like them individually, but the collection of the videos on the site provides so even more to learn from.  Not only are these a great link to science standards, but Jaclyn is passionate about ocean conservation and uses her blog and social media to spread that message.

Jaclyn plans to add a video most weeks to the site will continue to grow.  (All of the videos are also available on her Youtube Channel as well. And her books are now available as Kindle or iPad versions.







3 comments:

  1. These sound great! I just finished reading THE ASTRONAUT'S GUIDE TO LIFE ON EARTH by Mark Hadfield. Hadfield is a Canadian astronaut, did three missions, the last in 2012 for five months at the Space Station. He has a bunch of short YouTube videos on stuff like how to brush your teeth in space, what happens when you cry in space, etc. I want to try some of these with kids this fall. You might want to check them out, if you haven't already.

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    1. Oh I need to check those out! Thanks!

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  2. Thanks for sharing this resource Franki. I have begun collecting digital mentors for my classroom and want more video examples. And, I need to check out the resources Carol mentioned too. So much good stuff out there!

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