Friday, October 31, 2008

Fun on Friday #7: Maths, Grammar and YouTube

I feel a bit of a cheat posting this as my Fun on Friday. I talk to my students about the importance of respecting copyright but here I am posting some YouTube videos that (I suspect) don't belong to the people who posted them. My excuse? They are funny and it is nearly midnight and I'm too tired to come up with anything else. {In the passing, can I say, I'm open to suggestions for future Fun on Friday postings!}

This post came about because a student in one of my classes invited his fellow students to post YouTube clips from their favourite movies. I decided to play too, so I had a think and came up with two black and white comedies and a cult sci-fi classic. (I suspect this says something about me. Feel free to offer psychological analysis.) For the record, the clips were from a Marx Brothers film, a Laurel and Hardy film and a very early John Carpenter film.

To salve my concious, the clip I'm featuring here is at least vaguely educational:



In general, I don't really like Abbott and Costello, but this clip could be used in a number of ways. You could use this clip in Maths, to teach place values, multiplication and division. In English, you can teach about the importance of commas:
Abbott: Didn't you go to school, stupid?
Costello: Yeah. And I came out the same way.
And of course, the exchange above should be the topic of an EdD thesis. :-)

What educational film clips can you suggest?

P.S. I found the Abbott and Costello clip via one that a student posted on his blog. He starts his first teaching placement on Monday and created this blog to use with pupils: Mr Schafer's Maths Lessons. I'm looking forward to seeing how it develops

P.P.S. There's good Computing and Philosophy stuff in the Carpenter clip.

1 comment:

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