I add new videos to my Teaching Videos site on a regular basis, using a number of Youtube subscriptions to find useful videos (as well as videos shared on Twitter and in my RSS subscriptions). One Youtube channel that I particularly enjoy checking is for Steve Spangler Science.

Steve is a science author, teacher, professional speaker, toy designer, a television personality… and a big kid! His Youtube channel shares lots of big Science activities and events that he has been involved in. However, there are also a number of ‘Sick Science’ videos which feature tricks and experiments that can be played in the classroom. They’re great for provoking discussion about how the ‘trick’ works and talking about the Science concepts involved.

You could also try to recreate the experiment yourself as lots of them involve everyday classroom objects. Here’s an example:

Click here to view the embedded video.

If you have any favourite educational Youtube channels, please get in touch as I would love to hear about them!

Here are another five wonderful teaching resources that I’ve come across recently:

1) Walk to School Week – This week (16th to 20th May) is ‘Walk to School Week’. To support the week, there are lots of resources on the Walk to School site. Thanks to Simon Haughton for recommending these on Twitter.

2) Teaching with Comic Life - Comic Life is a fantastic piece of software for Windows, Mac and iPad which lets you create comic strips using your own digital photos. Lots of schools are using it and it’s been a great success whenever I’ve used it in my own classroom. Digmo has a fantastic guide to Teaching with Comic Life which you can download for free. A fantastic read!

3) BBC Domesday Reloaded - In 1986, the BBC published the Domesday Project and over a million people contributed to this digital snapshot of the country. People (including schools and community groups) were asked to record what they thought would be of interest in another 1000 years. Now, on the BBC Domesday site, you can rediscover and explore images and articles from the original project to find out how life in Britain has changed… and how some things have stayed the same. In addition, you will be able to update the project by re-photographing the images today and updating text entries. Could this be a project for your school to get involved in?

4) ICT Magic – This site is a new wiki which is bursting with links to lots of useful sites. They are all organised by subject / topic and the site is being updated regularly. Thanks to The Whiteboard Blog for bringing this to my attention.

5) Quite Tube – The Ideas for Teachers blog has a great post about the Quiet Tube service. Simply add ‘quiet’ before ‘youtube.com’ in the address bar of any Youtube video (e.g. http://www.quietyoutube.com/watch?v=-ZJDNSp1QJA) and the video opens in a plain window without links to other videos and comments… this is great for teachers who want to show videos without the other (sometimes inappropriate) content on the Youtube pages. Don’t forget that you can find educational Youtube videos on our other site, Teaching Videos.

What new resources have you discovered this week?

Are you a Dream Teacher? Jamie Oliver and YouTube are launching a new video competition to find and celebrate the UK’s most inspirational teachers who have found ways to help pupils understand and conquer different subjects.

The competition runs alongside the upcoming Channel 4 series Jamie’s Dream School (which starts tomorrow – Weds 2nd March), in which famous experts try to re-engage children who have dropped out of education. YouTube and Edexcel have come up with the toughest topics at GCSE and Standard Grade. The top ten topics identified as toughest are, in order:

1. Which enzymes catalyse what substrates and how do I remember them all?
2. How do you balance a chemical equation?
3. What is Pythagoras’s theorem and where does it apply?
4. How do globalisation and money affect local industries?
5. How can I remember names and dates in history?
6. How do I calculate forces and momentum and what equations do I need?
7. How should I structure an English literature essay?
8. What is the role of DNA in cloning and evolution?
9. How does nerve transmission work?
10. How can I understand Shakespearean language?

Now they are asking Britain’s teachers: Can you help? Have you got the answers? To enter the competition, teachers need to create a short video of themselves explaining one of these topics and upload it to YouTube at www.youtube.com/dreamteachers. Good luck!

Here are links to some of the education-related headlines this week:

• New research has shown that ‘the effort a parent puts into ensuring their child buckles down to schoolwork has a greater impact than that put in by the child or the school.’
• Research from Edinburgh University has shown that ‘Young people get more information about sex in school lessons than they do from their friends or parents’. Despite this, a survey has revealed that eight in ten teachers did not feel adequately trained and confident to teach sex education lessons.
• According to a new study, ‘Pupils make more effort with male teachers as they are seen as ‘more fair”.
• More than one in five of England’s primary schools are full to bursting point, government statistics have revealed.
• Children attending new “free schools” could be taught in pubs, undertakers, pet shops and hairdressing salons under proposals published by the Government.
• Plans for guaranteed school trips have been dismissed by ministers.

Image – Natural History Museum, London

• It has been suggested that schools in middle-class areas will have their funding cut to pay to support children from low-income families.
• The government has announced it is abolishing a pay body for school support staff in England. Read the official DfE statement about this. However, there are concerns that this could lead to underpayment for many support staff.
• The body representing Scotland’s university principals has said students may have to pay towards the cost of their degrees after they graduate.
• The BBC have produced this article about changing the terms in the academic year.
• Watch this video which shows what happens when a teacher moved into a family home in order to improve the behaviour of the teenager living there.
• After building an extremely successful presence on Youtube, Mr. Thorne is launching his own web site tomorrow which allows schools to view his videos even if Youtube is blocked in their areas.
• The top toys for Christmas have been revealed. How many of your pupils will have these on their Christmas lists?

Visit Teaching Events to find educational events to use in your classroom.

Mr. Thorne is a busy Year 1 teacher with his own Youtube channel. The channel has as huge collection of phonics videos which help children to learn how to read.

www.youtube.com/user/breakthruchris

At present, there are approximately 200 videos, which have been viewed over 300,000 times! The videos cover a wide range of literacy concepts, including:

Alphabet Sounds, for example: