Use Your Teacher Voice Campaign

I love this new campaign from Adam Heenan, a public school teacher from Chicago. He’s invited teachers from all over to weigh in on the issues they care about and advocate for their profession — on YouTube. It’s a powerful seed for a grassroots campaign that could help teachers “reclaim what has been lost: our authority in our vocation,” says Heenan.

Heenan is asking teachers to speak into the camera in their “teacher voice” and upload a video of around 30 seconds in length to YouTube. The topic can be pretty much anything, he says:

You may speak on any edu-topic of your choosing. UYTV does not have a political stance past encouraging you to reclaim your stance. I do expect some common themes to crop up, and if you wish to, feel free to speak on any or all of these topics: high-stakes testing, equitable funding, public schools, classroom size, teacher evaluations, decision-making, curriculum and instruction, education reform, etc.

Learn more about the campaign at Heenan’s Web site.

It’s Time to Make Internet Safety Fun Again

Here’s the latest from my studio, Planet Nutshell. We worked with the fantastic people at the Utah Education Network to produce this, and it’s part of a big program for kids and teens called NetSafe. Check out UEN’s NetSafe landing page here. We’ve also compiled the videos on the Planet Nutshell site for easy viewing.

We Give a Damn Campaign Videos

Never underestimate the power of star power. The We Give a Damn Campaign “is for everybody who cares about gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender equality.” Check out all their videos on YouTube.

Khan Academy Videos – Do They Work?

I recently heard about the Khan Academy series of education videos. I’ve embedded just one of the thousands hosted on the site. Khan Academy, which was founded by Salman Khan (Wikipedia profile) is a non-profit with a mission to provide a world-class education online. The site has garnered many accolades, including the admiration of Bill Gates and Gates Foundation.

Before I go any further, I should say that I’m not a pedagogical expert, so I’m just reporting what I’ve seen and heard about the Khan methodology. But there is a bit of controversy about the effectiveness of these videos. I was pointed to this critique and thought I’d share it. It comes from the teaching blog Action-Reaction. The following video explains why the Khan videos might not work as well as some would hope:

Here’s a key quote from the maker of the video, Derek Muller, a physics educator and science video blogger:

It is a common view that “if only someone could break this down and explain it clearly enough, more students would understand.” Khan Academy is a great example of this approach with its clear, concise videos on science. However it is debatable whether they really work. Research has shown that these types of videos may be positively received by students. They feel like they are learning and become more confident in their answers, but tests reveal they haven’t learned anything. [ed. note: textbook definition of pseudoteaching]

There’s no doubt that Khan Academy has done some incredible work here. Perhaps, though, when we set out to create educational content, it’s important to think about all the angles when it comes to effectiveness.

When in Doubt, Make a Funny Video

Never forget about the power of humor when you’re making a video. It’s often the best way to penetrate people’s defenses against accepting new information. That’s a good lesson, but mostly I just wanted to share this funny video about climate change from The Onion.

UPDATE: Here’s another funny video about the debt ceiling

What Makes a Video Memorable and Effective?

There’s a lot to like about this animation from Chris Harmon about the BP Gulf Oil Disaster. From a visual and technical point of view, it’s really well done, and very polished.

But when do facts start to become monotonous? Might this video be more effective if it had emotional content that viewers could identify with? Here’s something I want to talk about more: Human beings are emotional creatures. Our emotional responses to experiences are what make them memorable and meaningful.

This brings up the question of what makes a video memorable and meanigful. Do we remember a slick visual presentation full of facts, or should there be something else? I want to explore this question a lot more…

Producing Multimedia Teaching Materials

This video comes from the 11-part Climate Science in a Nutshell series, which was produced by Planet Nutshell in collaboration with the Utah Education Network. The series was just one component of an award-winning suite of climate science educational materials that UEN brought together for teachers in Utah and beyond. It’s an absolutely fantastic multimedia teaching resource. Here’s a screenshot:

Our collaboration on this series was an incredible learning experience for me. UEN facilitated communication between our studio and leading climate scientists to aid in our research. We then shaped the story arc of the series — from introduction, to climate change basics, to local and global effects, to solutions for a livable future. That led to a series of episode outlines which culminated in finished scripts that were vetted by UEN’s board of scientists.

The series was funded by a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Check out all the videos at planetnutshell.com/climate and at UEN’s climate science landing page.

For Social Media, Make Videos Short!

Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich makes a powerful case against income inequality in this video. It’s well done, and I had no idea Reich could draw! The real power of this video, though, comes from its brevity. The video even announces that it’s going to be brief — a signal to the viewer that there’s no big time commitment to consume this content “snack”. It’s no wonder, then, that this video has more than 1.1 million views.

The ability to boil down a complex economics subject into two minutes is a pretty amazing feat. While a short video might not be the right choice in all cases for your nonprofit or organization, they are effective when used as part of a social media campaign that relies on viral distribution and quick impressions. Social media is all about making things sharable — a bite-size morsel that busy people can share with friends.

Check out the sharing buttons that live just above the video on MoveOn.org. It’s the perfect combo of sharable content with an interface that makes things easily sharable. Take notes on that!

This video was produced by MoveOn.org. Learn more about it here.