Think # 20

Sometimes I get excited when I see an interesting-looking post in my reader. I go to it and begin reading only to either not find the anticipated interest or to lose it quickly. This happens quite often and I LIKE to read blog posts. Students have a hard (er) time sticking with a long string of text. However their patience seems a bit stronger when video is involved. There is something in our wiring that naturally draws us to video, at least for the television generations. (I do recall hearing my grandmother say they enjoyed the moving picture show my folks had taken her to see). I came across Made to Stick by Chip and Dan Heath in which they discuss the way certain messages “stick” and certain ones do not. It is a book directed primarily at the business world, though there are numerous “lessons” from the classroom. Video has the capability to tap into the Unexpected path to message stickiness. Though video today is likely considered among students the epitome of the commonplace, I can’t see students engaged with a student blog without a substantial video component. For this Thing, I posted a video on Project Based Learning, though a look through my posts reveals numerous videos on subjects of interest to me outside of the 23 Things exercise. I am certainly very pleased that Spring Branch ISD has not blocked YouTube as the process of finding the clip you want is effortless. Teacher Tube has come a long way since its inception and I plan to delve into it to see just how far it has come. The embedding process with either of these services just couldn’t be any easier. If a picture is still worth a thousand words, a video should be worth that ten fold.