As I’ve mentioned previously, I’m doing mid-year lists to make it easier for me to do my end-of-year final lists.

You might also be interested in:

The Best Videos For Educators In 2011

Part Two Of The Best Videos For Educators — 2010

The Ten Best Videos For Educators — 2010

And you might also want to see The Best Funny Videos Showing The Importance Of Being Bilingual — Part OneThe Best Videos Illustrating Qualities Of A Successful Language Learner and The Best Fun Videos About Books & Reading.

Here are my choices for The Best Videos For Educators In 2012 — So Far:

Here’s a short video demonstrating Bloom’s Taxonomy through scenes from the movie, “Finding Nemo.” It only has still scenes for each level with a description, but it would be easy enough to show the scenes from a DVD or via Netflix and use this video as a guide:

And here’s Bloom’s Taxonomy (Revised) According to Homer Simpson. I’ve embedded the video below, though if it doesn’t show up on an RSS Readers you might have to click through to see it. I’m adding it to The Best Resources For Helping Teachers Use Bloom’s Taxonomy In The Classroom, where it joins similar videos using clips from Star Wars, Seinfield and Pirates of the Caribbean to provide a similar light-hearted, but educational, perspective.

I’ve written a lot about the work of Harvard Professor Michael Sandel. Here’s short video where he’s considering the question “Should we pay children to read?” He gets to the crux of the matter in the final couple of minutes:

I titled this video “Sometimes You Just Have To Take The Risk, Jump In, & Grab An Opportunity Because It May Not Be There For Long…”:

First, congratulations to LeBron James on his first NBA Championship.

Second, thanks to LeBron for spending so much reading and making it so public.

Here’s a video on why and what he’s reading, and an ESPN article about it — LeBron James, open book.

Justin Reich posted Don’t Use Khan Academy without Watching this First, and it’s a very important post where he shared this video two teachers (and an important commentary about it), Dave Coffey and John Golden, created:

Bill Ferriter found this video and wrote a must-read commentary about it — Learning about Grading from the Baljeatles.

Let’s not turn our students into this, please. This video make a great case for why we need to help our students develop intrinsic motivation.

This really is an extraordinary video, and is tailor-made to use in an ESL class — it’s extremely engaging and has lots of different activities that students can describe and discuss. In fact, it’s engaging for anyone…. Unfortunately, it’s also a commercial for Coke, but the advertising part is very small at the end:

PBS released this wonderful remix of Mister Rogers:

Thanks to an excellent post by Jennifer Brokofsky, I learned about this short video of Sir Ken Robinson. He makes an excellent point about the importance of helping students motivate themselves (and I’m adding it to The Best Posts & Articles On “Motivating” Students):

“Farmers and gardeners know you cannot make a plant grow….The plant grows itself. What you do is provide the conditions for growth. And great farmers know what the conditions are and bad ones don’t. Great teachers know what the conditions for growth are and bad ones don’t.”

In this video, some ducklings were able to get over the curb on their own. However, several found that it was just too high. Look at how someone provides assistance to those having trouble, and how he doesn’t tell them what to do. Instead, he offers it as an option, as a choice they can make. It’s an example of an old community organizing axiom, “If you don’t give people the opportunity to say no, you don’t give them the opportunity to say yes, either.”

Diane Ravitch calls this video clip the “greatest single commentary on flaws of data-driven school reform today.” It is pretty darn good, I have to agree:

Perpetual Ocean is a NASA video showing ocean currents over a two year period. I’m adding it to The Best Sites For Learning About The World’s Oceans.

Check-out the just-released Symphony of Science video about dinosaurs. I’m adding it to The Best Sites For Learning About Dinosaurs:

This is a very good short video on how our brain learns. It also reinforces the importance of deliberative practice. I’m adding it to The Best Resources For Showing Students That They Make Their Brain Stronger By Learning:

This is a hilarious video using the often-used Hitler video clip to comment on school testing. I’m adding it to A Collection Of The Best “Laugh While You Cry” Videos. Thanks to Bill Ferriter for finding it.

We Are All Connected is a great one minute film from The World Wildlife Fund.

You could have English Language Learners say/write what is happening in the film, compare the two screens, and explain how they are similar.

Donalyn Miller, The Book Whisperer, shared this video from Kathy Collins of Choice Literacy:

Feedback is welcome.

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