Keyboarding skills: I have used Dance Mat with elementary students. The middle school keyboarding teacher and I both used Sense-Lang this year. I like the online keyboarding skill sites because the students can go to them at home as well as school.
I just laughed to myself when I saw the first topic for the Google search because I had recently decided to knit some socks. I hadn't knit in years and thought I knew what I was doing, but I forgot how to purl. A brief look at a video was all that was needed to refresh my memory. Handy thing to have when my aunt, who taught me to knit, isn't available.
I watched a variety of videos on all three sites. I liked the slide shows on Instructable for something that I would need to go at a slower pace and check back on a prior step. e.g. fixing a faucet. MonkeySee had a video on making Pumpkin Cranberry Nut bread. I didn't want the entire video, just enough to get the recipe and I had to back track twice to get that. If I were a beginning cook and didn't have a clue what was in the recipe I probably would have had to go back five or six times.
On Graspr I watched several videos on origami or at least parts of some. As with most things the quality varied with the producer of the video. One I really didn't like was subtitled and played music. The only way I could have watched the entire thing was to mute the music. One showing how to make a Halloween cat on a broomstick was very well done. The folder stopped at points to show what the shape should look like. It was done by ActivityV out of the UK.
I am going to pass the URL of Khan Academy on to the teachers at school. I think there are many ways they could use them.
My thoughts:
Video how-to sites and How- to books each have their place. If you only have a desktop computer it would be difficult to follow along on a video that showed how to change your spark plug wires. Also if the project you are working on requires frequent referral back to the video, a book or the PDF printouts from Instructable might be handier.
I would see people using the videos for learning activities that could be done at the computer or a quick refresher like my purl stitch.
1 comment:
I understand frustration with the recipe for Pumpkin Cranberry Nut Bread on the MonkeySee site. I too had the same thoughts until I happened to notice that they do include the recipe on the site. I think the more correct term may be hide the recipe but it’s there, at least for the recipes I looked at. On the Pumpkin Cranberry Nut Bread page look on the right side of the screen below the section on related videos. By default the Expert information is showing but there is a tab labeled Recipe.
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