Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…

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January 19, 2015
by Larry Ferlazzo
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Videos Of The Week

'Video Clutter' photo (c) 2006, John Pannell - license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

In yet another effort to get at my backlog of resources to share, I recently began this feature to share useful videos. I’ll still periodically highlight certain ones on their own, but the rest will be found on this regular post (you might also be interested in The Best Videos For Educators In 2014 – Part Two):

I’m adding this first fun and wild video to The Best Geography Sites For Learning About Europe:

I’m adding this next video to The Best Ways To Teach About The Paris Massacre – Please Contribute More:

This third video is going to The Best Sites To Learn About Pandas:

This video would be great to use in IB Theory of Knowledge classes when we discuss language:

This last one is also great: Neil deGrasse Tyson explains the meaning of life to a six-year-old:

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January 16, 2015
by Larry Ferlazzo
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Two New Useful Videos On Justice, Race & Cultural Identity

Here are two (really, three) videos from this week that could be very useful in the classroom.

First off, here’s Gina Rodriguez’ acceptance speech at The Golden Globes Awards. You can find the transcript at BuzzFeed, and here’s an excerpt:

For the stories that Americans have, I feel like there’s a perception that people have about Latinos in America specifically — somebody growing up in Chicago, English being my first language, Spanish being my second — that we are perceived a very certain way.

Our stories have been told, and they’re not unmoralistic, you know, being a maid is fantastic. You know, I have many family members that have fed many of their families on doing that job, but there are other stories that need to be told.

You may also be aware that the song, Glory, from the Selma movie also won a Golden Globe.

Here are the lyrics, the first music video (which is particularly accessible to English Language Learners because it displays the lyrics) and then a second one that was just released a couple of days ago.

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January 15, 2015
by Larry Ferlazzo
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Useful Collection of History-Related TED-Ed Videos

tededed

TED-Ed develops some very high-quality video animations, and I periodically highlight their new ones.

Today, I spent a little time reviewing some of their older ones and identified several that I’m adding to my class blogs in United States History and in World History.

I’m not including the link to each full lesson that goes with each video — you can find it by viewing the video on YouTube. I’m just adding them to other videos about that particular topic that I have on the appropriate class blog post.

Here they are:

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January 13, 2015
by Larry Ferlazzo
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Video: The Most Unusual Representation Of Plato’s Allegory Of The Cave You’ve Ever Seen

Plato’s Allegory of the Cave is a staple of IB Theory of Knowledge classes, and you can see many videos on our class blog — some made by professionals, some made by my students.

Here’s a version of it explained as an old-style video game. You can see other philosophical explanations done in the same way at 8-Bit Philosophy.

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January 9, 2015
by Larry Ferlazzo
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Decent Collection Of Introductory Videos To Various Writing Genres

Writing Exams from Flickr via Wylio

© 2007 ccarlstead, Flickr | CC-BY | via Wylio

Citelighter, an online writing tool for teachers and students that I’ve never quite figured out, has created a series of short well-produced introductory videos to various writing genres.

I think they could serve as useful introductions at the beginning of a lesson.

Here’s the video on persuasive writing:

Argumentative Writing from Citelighter on Vimeo.

Here are links to all of them:

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January 9, 2015
by Larry Ferlazzo
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Video: PBS News Hour Shows A Second Excellent Segment On Self-Control

Marshmallows from Flickr via Wylio

© 2007 rjp, Flickr | CC-BY | via Wylio

Three years ago, the PBS News Hour did an excellent segment on self-control (I originally posted about it at Here’s A Video On Self-Control I’m Showing My Students First Thing Next Week and it’s also the second video embedded in this post).

Last night, the did another very good one, focusing on the Marshmallow Test. It’s the first video embedded in this post, and you can see the transcript here.

My only critique of it is a line that is always infuriating to me when people talk about charter schools. The segment mentions that the KIPP school students are selected by lottery and suggests that makes them comparable to students in other public schools. However, it doesn’t mention the fact that families who are particularly invested in their children’s education are ones who would go through the effort of registering and participating in a lottery, which makes blanket comparisons to students in other schools invalid. Of course, I also have other concerns about KIPP’s “character education” program.

Nevertheless, it’s a very good segment that I’ll be showing in class. I’m adding this post to The Best Posts About Helping Students Develop Their Capacity For Self-Control.

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January 8, 2015
by Larry Ferlazzo
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Two Good “Around The World” Videos

World Map - Abstract Acrylic from Flickr via Wylio

© 2013 Nicolas Raymond, Flickr | CC-BY | via Wylio

Travelers creating their own “around the world” videos has almost become a genre since “Where The Hell Is Matt?” became popular in 2008.

I think students enjoy watching them in Geography class and learn something from them, too.

Here are two from the same man, Kien Larn. The first is his most recent one, and the second is a very popular video he made three years ago:

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