Oh Technology is great...when it's working. I didn't realize how dependent on my Promethean board I am until this past week when my projector bulb blew. I've been at a loss waiting on the replacement. I use it through my entire math lesson daily. I've been struggling trying to show my kids how to do something on a hundred's chart from a small worksheet. And all that led into a teacher story about how when I was school there were no smart boards. We didn't even have dry erase boards. We use to have to go outside and beat the chalk board erasers. My kids were staring with their mouths open. At that moment I felt sooo old! They also asked for more stories like that during read-a-loud. Hahaha!
Our school has several (thousands) of websites blocked. One of which is Youtube. I understand the reasoning (protecting our children's eyes and minds) however it can be annoying when there are so many good teaching clips on there. Such as this one that I wanted to use during an observation lesson on prefixes:
Does it get any better than that?
A co-worker shared a way to download and share you-tube clips (that are appropriate) during your lesson. Maybe everyone else already knows this secret. I sure didn't.
1. On your home computer (that doesn't have everything blocked) download the free version of Real Time Player. You can find it here: http://www.real.com/realplayer
2. Pull up the you-tube video that you want to save.
3. Your browser should have a box pop up asking if you want to download that video to Real Time Player. However, if you are like me and don't get that popup, right click on the video and chose it from the drop down menu there.
4. Go to real player. Save video to a disk or thumb drive.
5. At school, down load the same Real Time Player.
6. Open your saved video and it should automatically play in the Real Time Player.
Easy Peesy, Lemon Squeezy!
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