United Streaming

[Cyndi Danner-Kuhn]

Teachers from the Trenches:
Does your school have United Streaming and if so how do you make use of it in your classroom? If not what do you use?

TECS 290: After exploring United Streaming, how do you think you might use United Streaming in your own classrooms. What did you find that would be useful. Give an example. (Assignment details are in Moodle Week 4)

[Cyndi Danner-Kuhn]

Pretty typical way to use it, It really eats up bandwidth to download during school time when the network is busy.

[Deidra Chestnut]

The United Streaming website rocked! It took me a bit to get my account set up (I'm thinking the first time I attempted, I must have spelled my e-mail address wrong, because I never received the activation e-mail)--but after trying for the second time I was successful. I was amazed at how easily it was to function & I'm guessing that if the account was "real" and not only a "trial" it would be a lot better. I especially enjoyed the Clip Art section for Grades K-2. They were colorful and really great illustrations. Somtimes clip art can be a little boring, but not this clip art! The assignment builder in the teacher center section was also neat to explore and I could see myself using that one day. It continues to amaze me all the variety of tools that are right at our fingertips--all it takes is a little research!

[Cyndi Danner-Kuhn]

Yup lots of features when you have a "real" account rather than a demo.

[AbbyMaska]

United Streaming is amazing. I was also so lucky as to get to use this during my time student teaching and subbing at Hays High School. I loved United Streaming and actually used a video from it. The short video clips are great to insert into PowerPoint. It really helps bring the material to life. United Streaming is especially useful in the Social Studies classroom. Anytime history can be "brought to life" it seems to increase student motivation and interest. Even though I used the site during student teaching, I completely missed the lesson plans and other resources. I was so fixated on finding video clips that I did not realize how accommodating this site is for teachers. The standard alignment is great because its so important that as educators we make sure we are aligning our lessons to the State Standards. This is a great site and I'm so glad for this opportunity to go through it again and learn how other educators are using this in their classrooms.

[Jill Whitson]

I think the United Streaming site would be a wonderful research tool, especially for middle and high school. I teach preschool and there is not a lot available for that level. My husband said that our district had United Streaming for a trial period a few years ago but did not continue with it. He teaches high school social studies and found it to be very useful. If I were in the upper grades I would use it for researching and creating quizzes. I liked the calendar section that gave little tidbits of information, that would go good with social studies. There are also some good videos that could be used in the classroom. I do think it would be something that would be worth the districts money. As I stated, it is not geared much toward preschool.

[Alice Mercer]

For primary, and there is some material that is good for preschool, I would look at BrainPopJr..

[Emily Higgins]

I have ran into the same problem as Fred Griffith has. I registered and have been waiting for quite some time for my confirmation email with the activation link. I wish it would hurry and come because I am really anxious to have this 30 day trial. However, I have visited United Streaming at two schools before with my friends parents. I love it and without a doubt i will take advantage of it in my classroom if my school have it avialable. The videos are amazing and it is really a great lesson idea to show ones that go along with whatever lesson you are teaching. The videos will save you time and energy, becuase they teach too and the kids really get into this type of thing! Like i said though, i am still waiting on the confirmatioin email, and as soon as that gets here i will get on, explore, and find some of my favorite things.

[Alice Mercer]

Have you checked the spam box of your email? My school email has no spam box, and just killed the confirm messages when I was trying to sign up folks to edublogs.

[Cyndi Danner-Kuhn]

My guess is there was somethign wrong with your email, you might try signing up again.

[Vicki Schmidt]

What an awesome tool for the classroom! I had some trouble initially accessing it, but when I finally managed to get in--Wow! This is something every district who supports implementing technology in their curriculum should consider purchasing for their district. What a great way to find tons of video resource in one place instead of surfing for hours in a million other locations!

[Paul Carver]

I've had a few ideas on forming lessons with online videos. I know there are specific websites that have educational videos, but united streaming seems like a way to narrow the results. I think that this would d be a great time saver and allow teachers to find videos that would be beneficial to the students. The FHSU criteria for creating a lesson plan includes technology. I think this is to show diversity in educators, but also it is to help students who value technology and can learn from it.

[Denise Dolechek]

I am so glad you brought up United Streaming. It has some of the best videos for social studies out there. It has excellent videos on important historical events like World War II and the Holocaust. However, for less shall we say glamorous historical eras such as the Progressive Era, it provides comprehensive videos as well. I used United Streaming videos in my Methods of Teaching Social Studies class when I had to write an entire unit on the Progressive Era. I especially loved how the videos can be broken up into small chunks of information. I used these many times as transitional pieces, or anticipatory sets or closers. Everyone in the class used these videos. For history teachers they provide a way for history to pop out and grab students.