New KS3 Science module launched

We’re pleased to announce the launch of a new KS3 Science module, with over 350 video clips, each with its own set of teacher notes (in the process of being uploaded to the site). Spread across four topics (‘Energy, electricity and forces’, ‘Chemical and material behaviour’, ‘Organisms, behaviour and health’, and ‘The environment, Earth and universe’), and then organised into substrands and themes, the new module is structured in line with the new KS3 Science Programme of Study.

The clips have been sourced to accompany Heinemann’s popular ‘Go Science!’ series, though they can be used in conjunction with any KS3 science scheme of work. Each set of teacher notes contains a link to the Go Science! books, along with detailed learning objectives, notes on the video clip, and suggestions for how it can be used in the classroom.

You can view the new module by taking out a free trial here, or look out for the sample clips that we’ll be posting in the coming weeks.

Happy Easter

by James

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Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/22863752@N06/

Hopefully you’ve all had a great term and are now making the most of the holiday and warmer weather – it’s bright sunshine here in Oxford!

We’ve had a busy term again on the HVG blog and so I thought that I would summarise what we have covered, and highlight once more some of the great example clips that we have posted over the last few months. You can also see them all together on our YouTube channel.

The good weather this morning is quite a contrast to the cold and snow that we were experiencing at the beginning of January when we made our first post of the New Year. It included a clip from the primary literacy section of the gallery about how cold weather affects people, wildlife and landscapes around the world.

The first KS3 Geography clip that we posted looked at how volcanoes form, and has been our most popular example video of the year so far.

We celebrated Chinese New Year at the end of January, looking at the superstitions and traditions behind the festival. Hopefully the Year of the Ox is proving to be fruitful and prosperous for everyone, although I’m not sure if Chinese astrology takes credit crunches into account

It was the 250th anniversary of the birth of Robert Burns next. We posted another literacy example clip telling the story of Tam O’Shanter, one of Burns’ most popular poems, and which also explains how the Cutty Sark got its name from a petticoat!

In February, one of my favourite clips from the gallery (‘The Mystery of Little Red Riding Hood’s Ice-cream‘!) featured in a post about insulators and keeping things cool. We also posted a KS3 Geography clip about the effects of oil spills as a huge slick off the Irish coast made the headlines, thought to be from a Russian aircraft carrier.

March 1st was St David’s Day. Our post featured an example clip showing the natural beauty of Wales, and suggested plenty of resources to mark the day in the classroom. We included two primary science example clips in the next post about the Earth, Sun and Moon – very useful if you are trying to explain how the planetary bodies interact with one another as part of Unit 5E of the QCA Science Scheme of Work.

We marked St Patrick’s Day on March 17th by exploring who St Patrick was and the legends that exist around him, along with resource ideas and another KS3 Geography clip showing the fantastic landscape and scenery of Ireland. This was followed by an artistic example clip about the four seasons and discussion of when Spring starts, and we wrapped the term up last week with a post to mark April Fools’ Day – did we manage to catch any of you out?!

Have a good break and see you again in the new term, when we’ll have news of new primary and secondary modules. In the meantime, here is a taster (excuse the pun!) of one of our new primary maths problem solving clips. Try to concentrate on the questions!

Title of clip	Question of chocolate
Curriculum location	Primary Module C  >  Maths problem solving  >  Block E  >  Year 4  >  Section: Tables practice  >  Derive and recall multiplication facts up to 10 × 10, the corresponding division facts and multiples of numbers to 10 up to the tenth multiple
Description	A series of five chocolate based arithmetic problems that require either multiplication and division operations to answer: chocolate eggs travel along conveyer belt in factory; chocolate eggs halves in row upon row of moulds; green sweets covered by liquid chocolate on wire rack and then decorated with pistachio nuts when solid; chocolate blocks travel along factory conveyer belt; foil-wrapped chocolates coins dropping off conveyor belt.
Duration	1 minute 57 seconds

 

Please note that these are example clips provided through our YouTube channel and do not reflect the actual quality of clips in the gallery

Some technological developments

The more eagle-eyed amongst you may have noticed the addition of a new widget on the right-hand side of the blog recently. Through a service called Vodpod it is now possible for you to view some of the most popular Heinemann Video Gallery example clips that we have posted at the top of each page by clicking on the thumbnails. You can still see all of the example clips that we have uploaded in the past through our YouTube channel here.

If you use iGoogle to personalise your homepage (a great way to get the websites that you use most often and most relevant information to you all in one place), you could also add our YouTube channel feed to your page. The feed will appear on your iGoogle page  and will update itself automatically so that you can instantly see the newest HVG example clips when we upload them. You can add the Heinemann Video Gallery feed here by clicking on the ‘Add to iGoogle’ icon.

HVG on iGoogle

New KS3 Geography Programme of Study 2008 topics launched

We’ve recently bolstered the KS3 Geography Programme of Study 2008 section of the gallery with a set of new topics across the existing themes, and a new theme entitled ‘A hazard’ with its first topic called ‘Two volcanoes’. As with the topics that we launched in August, the new clips and resources to go with them have been created with the new Key Stage 3 Geography Programme of Study in mind.

You can find details about the series in this earlier blog post, or try it for yourself by taking out a free 30-day trial here. All clips are available for trial users to view, but please go to the ‘Warmer world, wetter world’ theme and ‘Flooding in the UK’ topic if you would like to see an example of the additional resources that accompany the clips. The image below shows a page from one of them, and shows how the various clips are linked to activities and wider resources on the subject:

You can see a breakdown of the themes and topics that are currently available in the series in the table below. These will be expanded further in early 2009 with the addition of more topics for each theme:

Theme	Topics
Changing places	Changing Spain Changing Brazil
Interdependent world	Migration stories Changing work: car industry
Natural world	River stories Coasts and oceans
Wetter world, warmer world	Flooding in the UK Bangladesh and global warming
Resource choices	Food stories Water choices
Sustainable world	Sustainable tourism Managing waste Aral Sea
Changing cities	Where will I live? Sustainable communities
A hazard	Two volcanoes

New science and literacy module launched

You may have noticed that we have been adding some new subjects to the gallery over the past couple of weeks. In addition to Primary Module A (comprising clips for Key Stage 1 and 2 History, Geography, Citizenship, and RE) which we launched earlier in the year, you can now subscribe to Primary Module B which covers Key Stage 1 and 2 Science and Literacy. Once we have published all of the clips there will be around 500 clips for each subject that are directly mapped against the curriculum, along with about 150 extra science and literacy ’topic’ clips.

The curriculum clips are sourced against the QCA schemes of work for science and the Primary Framework for literacy. ‘Topic’ clips aren’t organised into sections of the curriculum in this way, but deal with the key themes and issues of each subject more flexibly. Topic section headings within science include ‘Current Issues’ and ‘Food and Farming’, whilst ‘Writing Themes’, ‘Discussion Texts’ and ‘Report It’ are examples of sections within literacy. You can try the new primary module here for free, or look out for the example clips that we are going to be posting on the blog in the coming weeks.

One of the new Primary Science sections

Back to school

Most schools around the country have now resumed lessons after the summer break and are getting stuck in to the new term. Everyone here at HVG would like to welcome you back and wish you all the best for the new year. We have lots of exciting plans for the year ahead, including videos for several new subjects (we will be launching a new Primary module in a few weeks time – so watch this space!) and new ideas on how to develop our service further. If you haven’t signed up yet, and are looking for something different and exciting to give your lessons a boost this year, please do consider our gallery. You can take out a free 30-day trial here.

In the meantime, here is another example clip, from Key Stage 1 Geography, Unit 2 (‘How can we make our local area safer?’) and gives examples of two kinds of schools: a tightly packed inner city school, attended by children from nearby estates, and a small rural school which students travel from up to ten miles away to get to from surrounding farms. What type of school is yours most like?

Please note that this is an example clip provided through our YouTube channel and does not reflect the actual quality of clips in the gallery

New KS3 Geography Programme of Study 2008 module launched

We are pleased to announce the launch of a new set of geography clips, and resources to go with them, to meet the new Key Stage 3 Programme of Study that will be used in schools from September.

The series is designed to give teachers the flexibility to teach the new Programme of Study in the way they want, as well as giving them the opportunity to revise their geography teaching in the spirit of the new curriculum. The resources are based around 24 geography units which can be used to complement existing plans and resources, or to develop new ones. The units have been chosen to develop geographical understanding and skills through eight key themes, with progression in geographical concepts from year 7 to year 9. Although they are mainly designed for geography courses in Key Stage 3, they can also be used to develop and focus geographical thinking within integrated humanities courses.

Each unit contains a number of video clips from the BBC Motion Gallery, as well as a wide variety of different activities backed up with worksheets, maps and other resources, giving teachers everything they need to develop a series of lessons on each topic. For non-specialists, there is also a background briefing on the geographical issues.

The units are right up to date – including the latest thinking on, for example, climate change – and include some fresh material such as food stories and globalisation, as well as more staple fare such as rivers and coasts. For students, there are many suggestions for more in-depth investigations, including opportunities for research using key internet sites.

You can view examples of the new clips and associated documents here by taking out a free 30-day trial of the video gallery. All clips are available for trial users to view, but please go to the ‘Warmer world, wetter world’ theme and ‘Flooding in the UK’ topic if you would like to see an example of the additional resources that accompany the clips. We are currently working on new topics for each theme which will be launched later in the year, and cover subjects such as the global car industry, Brazil, flooding in Bangladesh, volcanoes, sustainable communities, and water choices.

KS3 Geography Overview

With so many Key Stage 3 Geography videos in the gallery, I thought it might be helpful if, over the next few posts, I provided a quick run through of what our content covers. At the moment, clips are organised according to the QCA schemes of work  but we are currently working on a whole set of fresh clips in line with the new Programmes of Study that come into force in September this year. More on those later….

We’ve already made a few clips available through our YouTube channel  but these really are only the tip of the iceberg of what Heinemann Video Gallery has to offer. The best thing is for you to take out a free 30-day trial and see exactly what there is for yourself.

The sample clips on earthquakes can be found in Unit 2 of the gallery: the restless earth – earthquakes and volcanoes. This is a subject that really lends itself to video, enabling the topic to be brought into the classroom in a way that words or photos could never do. There are BBC news reports on earthquake devastation and volcanic eruptions, as well as expert explanations and animations on the processes behind them, looking at plate tectonics and the Pacific Ring of Fire, for example. Other clips in the unit examine what can be done to reduce the effects of these terrible natural disasters, from predicting when they are likely to occur, to constructing buildings that will withstand them, and on to looking at the role of aid agencies after the disasters have happened.

One of the most pertinent clips from this unit is composed of two news reports on people who live in the shadow of active volcanoes in Ecuador and Montserrat. Despite the real and constant threat, many families still live in the danger zone as they simply have nowhere else to go. They carry on with their daily lives knowing that there could be a major eruption at anytime. If this were to happen, they would almost certainly be killed in an avalanche of molten rock and ash travelling down the mountainside at up to 115mph….

 

Please note that this is an example clip provided through our YouTube channel and does not reflect the actual quality of clips in the gallery.

The Way Things Were

For my first post on this blog, I thought that I would reflect a little upon the history of using video in the classroom from some of my own experiences. In the modern age of the internet, with an abundance of information instantly available at our fingertips, it is sometimes easy to forget how much things have changed in such a short period of time.
Way back in the 1980s, watching video at school seemed to me like something of a special event. Apart from being allowed to watch the odd movie at Christmas time or the end of term, we would occasionally gather up our books and move over to the TV room at other times in the year. Once the TV had warmed up and the video began whirling, we settled back in the darkened room to watch the programme. Videos would usually be shown in their entirety from start to finish with little or no teacher-class interaction until the end. With an average child’s formal attention span (in minutes) thought to be about as long as their age, many of the pupils would begin to switch off before the programme was even half-way through.
Some of the best remembered series amongst colleagues are You and Me, the theme tune of which was later given a revamp by UB40, and Words and Pictures. Look and Read also sticks out in my mind (beware this ‘Magic E’ song can really get stuck in your head!), later with dramas such as ‘Geordie Racer’. There are lists from the various channels here if you want to take a trip down memory lane.

Someone in the school had the job of manually recording the programmes (no Skyplus, or even Videoplus back then!), and each time teachers wanted to show a video, they would have to acquire the correct tape which always seemed to be elusive or already in use somewhere else in the school. As several episodes of the same show were often recorded consecutively, even if teachers managed to get their hands on the desired tape, they would then have to spend more time getting it to the right place for the start of the programme they wished to show. That annoying feeling of getting a video only to find that the last person who used it hadn’t rewound it back to the start seems distant in a time when we are able to instantly replay or skip between parts of a DVD or media player file.

Unless they had watched the entire programme themselves first, there was no way for teachers to know exactly what it covered, and it might be that only a small portion of an hour-long clip was relevant to their lesson objective. Content was often reused and a lot of time wasted watching footage that wasn’t entirely useful or relevant to a lesson’s objectives.

There were other instances when time was wasted in a different way. On one occasion a classmate had managed to acquire a watch which, once tuned in, was also capable of transmitting remote control signals to a TV or video player. As the class settled down to watch the video, our teacher was baffled as the programme mysteriously began to rewind itself, then stop, and fast forward. After getting up to correct the machine and sitting back down, the same thing would happen again, and again, and again…

Fortunately for teachers the days of remote control watches and using VHS in the classroom are long gone, and that is where the Heinemann Video Gallery comes in. Of course it hasn’t just been a straightforward switch from the kind of situation outlined above to the position that we are in today, but the difference between the two that has come about over such a short period of time still seems remarkable.

By subscribing to our service, teachers are able to access clips to fit lessons easily and quickly in a way that would have been unthinkable thirty years ago. We currently have around two thousand clips on the site but we are going to be adding many more in the future. All of the videos have been carefully researched and selected according to the curriculum and learning objectives.

Rather than the longer generalised videos of the 1980s, the clips on HVG are much shorter in duration, each one being only around a few minutes. By adopting this bite-size approach and providing short and focused clips, we believe it is possible for video to be used by teachers in a much more engaging way. Each video has been sourced with a particular classroom usage scenario in mind and has suggestions for this displayed alongside it.

All of our clips also have succinct titles, descriptions detailing exactly what is shown, and are labelled with keywords. This makes it easy for teachers to search and find clips that are highly relevant to what they are teaching at any particular moment. Alternatively, the way in which a large part of the gallery is structured around the QCA schemes of work makes it possible for them to drill-down to an objective or curriculum section for any given lesson. All of the clips within a section are displayed in a list, with thumbnails that can be rolled over to instantly preview the clip.

As long as there is an internet connection, the gallery can be accessed from anywhere, at anytime. There is no longer any need for teachers to record programmes, find tapes, or make sure they are rewound to the right position. All of the clips are instantly playable and available all of the time to an unlimited number of users.

Recent technological developments and the advent of the internet in particular have truly changed the nature of teaching in a stark and rapid way. Perhaps it is just the historian in me, but I think it is always useful to reflect upon how things used to be and where we have come from in order to appreciate what is often taken for granted, and also facilitate thinking on the way that things might develop further in the future.

Heinemann Video Gallery launched

We’ve been building the Heinemann Video Gallery for some months now, and our first modules are now complete. We’ve launched a module for Key Stage 3 Geography (with nearly 600 video clips), and a Primary module that covers Citizenship, Geography, History and Religious Education (with over 700 clips).

Our partnership with BBC Motion Gallery has given us access to some fantastic video resources, some of which are simply unique.

We’ll be building on what we have – adding more videos, refreshing clips – and launching more modules during the coming months. We’re also keen to keep improving our service, with additional features and tools.

If you’re from a UK school you can sign-up for a free 30-day trial – or you can get a sneak preview on our YouTube channel.