Your Top 10 Videos (That Inspire Us To Rethink The Way We Learn)?

• Starting point - 80+ Videos for Tech. & Media Literacy
• My Top 10 List (Vote or rearrange according to...)
  

THINKING

I was last night exploring Dr. Alec Couros amazing list of videos for Tech. & Media Literacy, and then an idea popped in my wondering mind.

Ironically and sadly, many of us are still trying to persuade our dear fellow educators to rethink the way we educate and learn (even until today! Believe it or not!), but often fall short for one reason or the other. Let's face it, not all of us can inspire like Obama.

However, if we can't personally inspire mindset change, others perhaps can. Personally, I always use videos (usually short ones. 3-10 minutes) in my presentations to spark or inspire participants to think about, or rethink the way we learn and teach in the 21st century (It is already 2009!). Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. But, overall participants get excited and appreciate whenever I have infused a relevant video or two in my presentations.

However, the real challenge is to choose the appropriate video(s) for the learning event, while taking into consideration all the racial, cultural or religious challenges it might cause. But before even getting there, we need to discover excellent videos. Dr. Alec Couros has done the world a great favor by sharing with us his amazing list. Thank you!

OBJECTIVE

Wouldn't it be nice if other learning professionals (or anyone for that sake!) shared their list of favorite learning videos with the rest of us. Let's virally share our favorite videos, enabling those that struggle to find such videos, find them more conveniently.

To be a bit more instructionally sound, let's create an objective for this video discovering event:

• To list and share our top 10 favorite videos that inspire us to rethink the way we learn and educate in the 21st century.

Besides the title, author and link (URL) to the video, please add a short description and why you selected that particular one (if possible).


MY TOP 10 LIST
Here is my current top 10 list of videos that inspire us to rethink the way we learn and educate:

1. A Vision of Students Today (Michael Wesch)
   Created to inspire teachers to use technology in engaging ways to help students develop higher level thinking skills. Equally important, it serves to motivate district level leaders to provide teachers with the tools and training to do so.
   
   
2. Do Schools Kill Creativity? (Ken Robinson)
   Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining (and profoundly moving) case for creating an education system that nurtures creativity, rather than undermining it.
   
   
3. Did You Know? 3.0 (Created by Karl Fisch, and modified by Scott McLeod)
   "Widely viewed video by Karl Fisch and Scott McLeod that gives light to the changes imminent in our emerging knowledge-based society. This is an excellent video for framing and introducing the new reality to students, teachers, faculty, and administrators." - Dr. Alec Couros
   
   
4. The Machine is Us/ing Us (Michael Wesch)
   "Web 2.0" in just under 5 minutes.
   
   
5. Five Minute University (Father Guido Sarducci)
   Father Guido Sarducci teaches what an average college graduate knows after five years from graduation in five minutes. The video gives humorous critique to learning in higher education.
   
   
6. Pay Attention (Darren Draper)
   This presentation, simply entitled Pay Attention, was created by Darren Draper in an effort to motivate teachers to more effectively use technology in their teaching.
   
   
7. Teaching Teaching & Understanding Understanding (Claus Brabrand and Jacob Andersen)
   
   A 19-minute award-winning short-film about teaching at the University. It shows examples of good and bad teaching, and promotes constructive alignment learning approach using Solo Taxonomy to test students' level of understanding (deep understanding?).
   
   
8. Brain Rules (Dr. John Medina)
   How do we learn? What exactly do sleep and stress do to our brains? Why is multi-tasking a myth? Why is it so easy to forget--and so important to repeat new information? Is it true that men and women have different brains? In Brain Rules, molecular biologist Dr. John Medina shares his lifelong interest in how the brain sciences might influence the way we teach our children and the way we work. In each chapter, he describes a brain rule - what scientists know for sure about how our brains work - and then offers transformative ideas for our daily lives.
   
   
9. Debunks Myths about the so-called "Developing World" (Hans Rosling)
   
   You've never seen data presented like this. With the drama and urgency of a sportscaster, statistics guru Hans Rosling debunks myths about the so-called "developing world." Yes, we could learn a few tricks from him on how to inspire students to learn our topic for the day.
   
   
10. PowerPoint Extreme Makeover (Dean Shareski)
    How do you use PowerPoint effectively? Using Camtasia studio, Dean Shareski shows you what you can do to make your PowerPoint presentation more attractive, engaging and effective.
    
    
11. A Brave New World-Wide Web (David Truss)
    
    I know it is a top 10 list, but I just discovered this excellent learning video, and want to include it here (so I don't ever forget it!). It makes you reflect about how technology is changing the way we learn and teach, and is a great video to kick-start a discussion on using technology to facilitate learning.

YOUR TOP 10 LIST?

Wouldn't it be cool if we could do something similar to Jane Hart's Top 10 Tools Lists of Learning Professionals 2009 for inspiring learning videos, and then do the top 100 and hoopla, hoopla, hoopla...! Jane, if you are reading this post, I would recommend that you take charge (seriously!) of this project (no money involved, just 1000s of more hits!). We could replicate, or reuse your template for learning tools, and do one for videos, too.

If not, we could use a wiki. If anyone has already posted their 10 top videos (or whatever list), please feel free to share it with us (in the comments section).

In short, I believe this inspiring project 'in the making' could be really helpful to many enlightened and inspired educators (but perhaps not inspiring to others) out there that are looking for sparks (e.g. learning videos) that could inspire their fellow educators to rethink the way they educate and learn.

Educators who have shared their top 10 lists, or favorite learning videos (until now):

1. DigiZen
2. Alfredo Calderón
3. Tracey Mollins
   

(Click their names to discover more juicy learning videos.)

Let's get busy sharing our favorite learning videos with the rest of the learning world :)