Videos in the classroom - Yes, you can!

While attending the Arkansas Leadership Academy (ALA), I was told about an amazing computer program (download) that would allow me to show videos in my classroom. For those of you who do not have internet access in your classroom, or like me, have a less-than-stellar connection, there is a way around this. It will require you to do a little work on your home computer but, trust me, it's worth it. Here is what I did.

On my home computer, I went to www.youtubedownloader.com and downloaded the program. There is a tutorial showing what to do. Be mindful, I had to ignore all of the add-on options (there are about three of them.) Once I had the program downloaded, the program was pretty easy to use. I would simply find a video on YouTube that I wanted to use in my classroom, copied the link and pasted it into the YouTube downloader program. Once it was downloaded, I would select Show Files (this might require you to close the program and reopen it.) From there, I could simply Click and Drag the file from the current location to my flash drive (thumb drive, memory stick, etc.) When I got to school, I would again Click and Drag the file from my flash drive onto my desktop. I began to create subject-specific folders so I could find my videos easily (Spelling, Shared Reading, Math, Science, Social Studies.)

By the way, this is really awesome to use when there is a sub in the classroom. My subs always had access to my desktop (I gave them my username and password.) They could show videos (and books) to the kids.

I even took it a step further, I loaded the videos onto the computers that the students use (in the Computer Center.) If the kids wanted to, they could watch the videos and sing along with them quietly.

Here are some Search terms (or authors of YouTube videos) that are directed toward elementary aged students:

Have Fun Teaching

Barbara Milne

KidsTV123

High Frequency Words

Harry Kindergarten

Super Simple Songs

ELF Learning