WatchKnow
The potential for using online video in the classroom is tremendous. Teachers rely on video for reaching different learners, as a resource to help those couple of kids who didn’t “get it” the first time around, and as an instructional resource for conveying concepts that are visual and complex. As lead science teacher at a high school in Raleigh said recently at a professional conference, “We use YouTube every day. I couldn’t teach biology without it.”
Time is a teacher’s scarcest resource, and finding quality instructional video takes time. What if there was a website that collected the best free educational videos for children and made them findable and watchable on one website? Now there is. WatchKnow is a resource for you and your students, identifying quality video and organizing and categorizing that video according to subject and education level. You can go or send your students to WatchKnow to find videos that explain every topic that is studied in school instantly and reliably.
To find videos that have been identified for the next unit you are planning, browse the site by subject by drilling down through the topical menu on the left side. For example, Physical and Health Education: diseases: bacterial infections nets a return of 9 videos including an animation demonstrating how bacteria gain entrance to the body and a CDC-produced news clip that explains how a salmonella outbreak associated with peanuts was identified and how the affected products were tracked and recalled. If your information need is more specific, search the site. A search for “mammals” returns many videos, but you can filter the results by age, choosing just the age span appropriate to your need to narrow the results.
WatchKnow is both a resource for users and also a non-profit, online community that encourages everyone to collect, create, and share free, innovative, educational videos. Adding a video is only the first step. Once the video is approved and available, the users can suggest different categories, add an age range… like a wiki, the records for each video may be edited by users over and over again. It is through the participation of the user base that these videos are made most useful, as users can categorize and re-categorize, add to descriptions, rate and sort these videos to make the most useful video simple to find. To learn more about how to use this in your classroom, take advantage of the site’s help resources including Tips for Teachers and view the videos about WatchKnow linked on the bottom left side of the home page.
While joining WatchKnow is not required for participating as a content contributor, if you join, your ratings are weighed more heavily. Most teachers will need only a simple account which requires no email address yet provides the ability to track your activities. If you find that you are adding and editing content and would prefer to do so without moderation, the simple account is upgradable to Confirmed Account which requires your real name, e-mail, location, statement and legal agreement required. (You need not use your real name as a username.) Finally, if you want to enter WatchKnow contests, upgrade to a Contest Account (only for U.S. residents ages 13 and over.)
I find this resource is oddly compelling. Something in the easy and flexible yet highly functional way the site works captures my interest and makes me want to revisit and add to the collection. WatchKnow captures that best aspect of online community, building upon the integrity of the educational user base and the energy of the teachers who get excited when they find that gem of an instructional video that will help them to reach the one student they have been struggling to reach. The premise of this website and the collaborative way the users work to make it more useful is in keeping with the trend toward crowd-sourced development of content and exemplifies some of teaching’s best qualities, collaboration and sharing.
Even though the need for quality video is great, there may be issues with using the content identified on WatchKnow. The video comes from a variety of online video sharing sites including YouTube, TeacherTube, and eHow, as well as some more traditional educational sites like National Geographic. If these sites are blocked, you will be able to find the videos on WatchKnow, but you will not be able to view them, as the filter blocks the source of video. Given the fact that many schools and school systems cannot afford the cost of paid multimedia content, free content identified on WatchKnow may represent the best opportunity for finding and using video content for many of our less advantaged students. If you cannot take full advantage of quality, vetted video in your classroom because of indiscriminate, across-the-board filtering of video, take this to your educational leaders, your school boards and others to bring attention to this issue of equity.
For more information about filtering, equity, and information access issues, visit these sites:
- AASL Essential Links: resources for school library media development
- What is Intellectual Freedom? The AASL Intellectual Freedom brochure in pdf format.
