Vifinition - Videos Defining Words

Vifinition is a fun site featuring videos that define words. The site matches YouTube videos to words. The videos aren't explanations of words so much as they are demonstrations of the words in context. For example the video for "bend" shows pictures of bent objects. That video is embedded below.


Applications for Education
Vifinition isn't a site that I would send students to on their own because the videos do come from YouTube and the site is crowd-sourced so your students could come across material that isn't suitable for the classroom. Instead, I would use Vifinition as a teacher to locate videos that I could share with my students during a vocabulary lesson.

Vifinition also gave me the idea for a vocabulary lesson in which you have students make videos that demonstrate definitions in context. If you don't the resources or classroom time for creating videos, you could have students search YouTube, Vimeo, Next Vista, and other video sites for videos that do demonstrate the meaning of their vocabulary terms.

Embed Plus Offers Real-World Context for Vocabulary Words

Embed Plus is a free service for clipping and annotating YouTube videos. I wrote about the service and included a demo of it last winter. This morning I learned from Learn It In 5 that Embed Plus also provides a nice service for learning how to pronounce words and watch some examples of those words being used in a real-world context.

Embed Plus Dictionary allows you to search for a word, hear a pronunciation, and watch a video clip in which that word is used in a real-world context. The example that Embed Plus features is about the word "salmon." I've embedded their example below.


Applications for Education
Embed Plus Dictionary could be a good resource for students of high school age or older. The video clips that I saw would not be terribly engaging for younger students. If you're looking for clips that would be appropriate for K-8 students, I recommend visiting Wordia.

TED Education - It's a Good Start

This morning the TED Blog announced the launch of TED-Ed. I've watched three of the twelve videos in the TED Ed channel on YouTube and would say they're more like thought prompts than they are instructional lessons. I guess when I first saw the headline that I was hoping for a bit more, but this is a good start. I've included one of the videos below.

Applications for Education
The TED-Ed videos could be good for sparking discussion in your classroom about the topics you're teaching. For example, use this video, The Power of Simple, as part of a lesson on writing. Have students watch the video then give them the task of editing wordy passages into succinct messages.

Videos - From Campaign to President

In case you haven't heard, this year the United States is choosing a President. The process started a while ago and we still have almost eight more months of hollow promises to hear campaign activities to go before the election. I've been bookmarking videos related to the election process for a while, here they are. I hope this help you help your students understand the process of choosing a President of the United States.

Let's start with an explanation of how candidates raise campaign funds.


Now that we've raised money, let's spend it.


And why do we have to spend it so early? Because of the primary and caucus season. Here's an explanation of those.


Let's see who helps candidates in those early elections and caucuses.


It's pretty much a given that an incumbent first term President will receive his party's nomination. That's an advantage. There are some disadvantages to being the incumbent. Here's a look at the advantages and disadvantages of campaigning for re-election.


Now that we're down to just two viable candidates remaining, let's pick a victor through the Electoral College. Here's one explanation and here's another.

Crash Course - Plant Cell Biology

Last month I wrote about the YouTube channel Crash Course. At that time I was highlighting the Crash Course history videos. Today, I want to point out the science videos. Crash Course is now up to six biology videos. Like the history videos, the biology videos are rather fast-paced and in a couple of spots make some borderline inappropriate comments But as a general rule, the Crash Course videos should be okay for high school students (use your discretion, what's okay at my school might not be okay at your school, before showing the video to a classroom).

SparkNotes on YouTube

From the pages of "I wish this had been available when I was in high school" I just discovered that SparkNotes has videos on YouTube. The SparkNotes YouTube channel offers 23 short animated video overviews of literature commonly read in high school courses. Below I've embedded the first of three videos about The Odyssey.

Applications for Education
The SparkNotes videos certainly are not a substitute for reading. The videos could be useful in helping students understand key points in the plots of the novels that they are reading.

Explain It To Me Explains Iran

I'm kind of hooked on CNN's Explain It To Me series of videos. Each video offers a nice, succinct explanation of topics in the news. One that I watched early this morning is an explanation of Iran's nuclear program and the concerns it causes. The short video is appropriate for use with high school students in a current world news course.



To follow-up on the video above, ThinkFinity has a good list of lesson plans for teaching about nuclear energy. Here is a short video explanation of how a nuclear reactor works.

Chill - Organize and Share Your Favorite Videos

Chill is a free service for creating and sharing collections of your favorite videos from YouTube, Vimeo, VEVO, and Hulu. Chill is kind of like Pinterest for videos. Using Chill you can add videos with your comments to categories that you create. Your videos appear like sticky notes on a wall. Chill allows you to follow other Chill users to discover and share new videos.

Applications for Education
For teachers looking for new video content to use in their classroom, Chill could be a place to find that content. Or if you're just looking for a better way to organize the videos that you find online, Chill could be the solution for you.

The History of Calendars, Leap Year, and Daylight Savings

This year the child of one of my good friends will be celebrating his birthday on his actual birthday for only the third time. Why is this? He was born on February 29, of course.

Why is George Washington's birthday recorded as both February 11, 1731 and February 22, 1732? It's recorded as both because of the change from the Julian Calendar to the Gregorian Calendar in 1752 (read more about Washington's birthday on Archives.gov).

Here are a couple of videos that explain the history of our modern calendar and why we have an extra day every four years.



This video was shot on February 29, 2008 which is why you here the narrator say "today is leap year." Four years later it is still a good, brief explanation of leap year.


And while we're on the topic of time, here are a couple of videos about daylight saving time.



H/T to Brain Pickings for the first video.

DocumentaryZ - Another Place to Find Free Documentaries

In the past I've shared some lists of good places to find and watch free documentaries online (here's one list). Today, I learned about another place that teachers and students can find and watch documentaries online. DocumentaryZ offers hundreds of documentaries organized into two dozen categories. Many of the videos are served via YouTube, but some are not. If you're fortunate enough to work in a school that allows you to access YouTube, DocumentaryZ is worth bookmarking.

Applications for Education
If you're looking for a documentary to use in your classroom, take a look at DocumentaryZ. I do have one word of caution, the Health and Sexuality categories do include some topics that may not be appropriate for all students. Therefore, it would be best to use DocumentaryZ for your own searches rather than letting students search the site on their own.

Stocks, Dividends, and Inflation Explained in Under Two Minutes

Through Explania I have just discovered a great collection of short video explanations of important topics in economics. Investopedia has a great YouTube channel in which they explain in two minutes or less concepts like inflation, stocks, and dividends. I've embedded a couple Investopedia explanations below.

What is inflation?


What is the difference between stocks and bonds?


On the personal finance front, Common Craft offers some good videos about borrowing money, saving money, and investing money. The videos can be viewed on the Common Craft website, but if you want to download them or embed them you will need to have a Common Craft membership. Here's their explanation of saving money and compound interest.


Disclosure: I have an in-kind relationship with Common Craft. I advised them on some products in return for access to their library of videos.

What is a Tsunami? A Video Explanation

Explania is a good place to find video explanations and interactive images that explain all kinds of things from the worlds of science, technology, sports, and health. Today, on Explania I discovered this excellent animated explanation of tsunamis. The two and a half minute video explains how tsunamis are created and the impact of tsunamis when they reach land. The video is embedded below.


Tsunami Infographic from Shal on Vimeo.

Applications for Education
Unfortunately, the world saw plenty of footage last year of the tsunami in Japan. That provided plenty of visuals on the damage caused by tsunamis. This video provides a good way for students to see how a tsunami is formed. Here are a few other resources that you could also use in lessons about tsunamis: Tsunami Mapper, Tsunamis 101, Stop Disasters.

Learn About Physics Through the Circus

In 2010 PBS aired a short series called Circus. Circus was a documentary about the Big Apple Circus. The show took viewers behind the scenes of a traveling circus production. All six of the episodes are currently available to watch online. Today, through a Tweet by Danny Nicholson I learned that the Circus website offers some short circus-based physics lessons.

Circus Physics is a series of eight short videos. Each of the videos features a circus act that demonstrates a basic principle of physics. Each video clip is accompanied by text and image explanations. I've embedded the Newton's Laws of Motion video below.

Watch Circus Physics: Newton's Laws of Motion on PBS. See more from Circus.