Thing 9 United Streaming

I have used United Streaming many times in my class before. Despite stereotypes, as a Social Studies teacher I do not like to show too many videos :) There are times though, when I want a short clip to illustrate a point we have made in class. United Streaming video segments are perfect. I can find quick 5 min clips to supplement a lesson.

I have never done much "exploring" on United Streaming. So, I took some time to do that. I love that the full videos come with blackline masters, curriculum guides, and other teacher resources. I could really see using them during my World Religion unit. I love teaching that unit but struggle finding ways to help the kids understand religions that they are unfamiliar with. I found that these resources go beyond "video worksheets" and cover important concepts, vocab, maps, etc...

I also played around with embedding video. I have a powerpoint presentation about Confucianism and Daoism as part of my world religion unit. I found a 1 min clip about Confucius and I embedded that into the powerpoint. I found it to be very easy to do. In fact, I surprised myself by figuring it out so quickly. I could see doing this a lot more. I have put together the powerpoints to make note-taking more engaging for my 8th graders, now I can improve on them even further by adding the video clips.