They had a little professional help, but what a great idea! Leave a comment if you know of similar videos promoting reading and I’ll update this post by embedding them below.

Courtesy of Pat from the Successful Teaching blog via the Diigo Education Bookmarks.

1. Browse to Vixy.net or Vconvert.net
2. Enter the page address of a YouTube video that you want to download (i.e., http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACUxJ6fq2IY)
3. Select the file format in which you want to save the video (.mov, .avi, etc.)
4. Click the “Start” or “Convert and Download” button.
5. Wait while the file is converted, and then download it to any location on your hard drive when the download window pops up.
6. Transfer the file to a thumbdrive or CD-ROM, then bring it to school and play it for your students through a projector.

If you have a laptop that you use at both school and home, you might consider installing Miro, a free, open source video viewer.  Miro works a lot like iTunes, but for video content.  With Miro you can search for, download, play, and organize video content.  You can learn more about Miro by watching the Miro demo video.

You might show these videos in pairs, one optimistic and one pessimistic, and ask students to state in one sentence how they interpret the artists’ messages.  Or, you could play a couple of songs and ask students if they think the music and the videos express a positive outlook on the future or a negative one.

Once the class has discussed the songs, have them write a paper expressing their own thoughts about the future.  Where are we headed as a nation? A civilization? A species?

You could also ask the question, How optimistic is the music you listen to?  Is the music on the radio optimistic, pessimistic or an equal balance of both?  Then have them find a list of the top 100 singles and sort them into two columns to see if their prediction was correct.

Here are the videos, in no particular order:

Matchbox 20 -  How Far We’ve Come 

Louis Armstrong – What a Wonderful World:

Billy Joel -  We Didn’t Start the Fire:

Goo Goo Dolls – Better Days:

Five for Fighting – 100 Years:

Switchfoot – Stars:

Green Day – Good Riddance (Time of Your Life): This would also make for a good lesson in irony

Connie Talbot – Over the Rainbow:

Barry McGuire – Eve of Destruction:

High School Musical – Breaking Free:

Tip of the hat to Jim at People of the Book.

And here’s some more absent-minded humor for your Friday:

The Absent-Minded Professor

It was moving day for Professor Johnson’s family. Knowing how forgetful her husband could be, his wife put a slip of paper in each of his pockets with the new address written on it.

When his classes were over, all he had to do was to take out one of the slips and then drive to his new home. But during the course of the day, he used every single piece of paper to write notes on, and then gave the notes to his students. He got into his car at the end of the day and suddenly remembered that this was moving day.

He could not recall at all where he was to go. But he had an inspiration. He drove to his old house, and luckily enough, there were some children playing outside.

“Hi little girl!” he called to a child who was near. “Can you tell me where the Johnson’s have moved to?”

“Sure, It’s just around the corner and two houses down Daddy.”

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In any case, the tag line says everything there is to say about teaching: A Glass and a Half Full of Joy.  For those of you starting school today, especially first-year teachers, may your year be full of wonder, inspiration and joy.

The Teacher’s Rap!:

An Average Day in the Classroom!:

Parents Evening, Part I:

Parents Evening, Part II:

Parents Evening Part III:

Make sure you check out Sam’s YouTube page for more of his original comedy sketches.

How NOT to make a PowerPoint presentation:

An example of an effective PowerPoint presentation (sound quality is a bit rough on this one):

1. Taylor Mali on What a Teacher Makes

2. The Impact of Reading Literature

3. The Make a Difference Movie

4. When you think you can’t you CAN:

5. Mr. Holland finally figures it out:

6. Mr. Keating inspires his students in Dead Poets Society:

7. The Importance of Teachers Who Care:

8. Hero in the Hallway:

9. Mr. Keating teaches his class how to read literature:

10. And the greatest cinematic teacher tribute of them all, the moving final act of Mr. Holland’s Opus:

Mr. Holland’s Opus