30 Discussion Starter Videos

I’ve bumped into many interesting videos while flowing through the intertubes and I’d like to share some of them here. I’d say they are appropriate for most middle school students, up to adult. You, of course, will know best.
If you have a slow connection or have video sharing sites blocked at your school, then you might want to download them first so you can play them later. A great tool for this is Kick YouTube.

Here’s how it works: Take the video’s URL, for example:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_GBwuYuOOs

and replace the “www.” with “kick”.

http://kickyoutube.com/watch?v=G_GBwuYuOOs

You will then have several download options. The quality of the downloaded videos is quite good.

Please feel free to share your own interesting conversation starter vids in comments at bottom.

Enjoy.

 

  1. The Story of Stuff: “The Story of Stuff http://www.storyofstuff.com will take you on a provocative tour of our consumer-driven culture — from resource extraction to iPod incineration — exposing the real costs of our use-it and lose-it approach to stuff.” (Has several parts.)
  2. Lost Generation
  3. Stir Your World (Goes well with number two, above.)
  4. Si Vis Bellum: Of war and peace.
  5. Stille Post: Delves into many powerful topics. Suspenseful.(Watch higher quality version at PangeaDay.org; not embeddable)
  6. Michael Jordan, on failure. (How do schools deal with “failure”? Do they promote risk-taking?)
  7. Elevator Music: Another great one from PangeaDay.org
  8. Wake Up, Freak Out, Then Get a Grip: “This really isn’t about polar bears any more.”
  9. The BioDaversity Code: “A secret held for millennia is about to be exposed.”
  10. The Good Life: “Watch New York Times bestselling author Mark Albion’s 3-minute animated movie Based on Mark’s book, More Than Money.”
  11. Amateur: Creativity, Persistence, Music, Fun
  12. Powers of Ten: Math, Pesrpective, Mindbend
  13. Fractal Zoom: Math, Beautiful, Nature, Math in Nature, Nature in Math
  14. Her Morning Elegance: Music, Video, Acting, Animation, Cool, Beauty, Art, Arts – What makes art art?
  15. Get Clean Coal Clean!: “Clean Coal is supported by the Coal Industry–the most trusted name in coal.”
  16. Kaplan University Professor Spot
  17. Dead Poets Society no. 2: “What will your verse be?”
  18. Dove Commercial – Onslaught: PG-13?
  19. Dove Onslaught(er): Talk to Dove before it’s too late.
  20. Model Evolution – Dove
  21. Class Pictures: “In an extraordinary new book, photographer Dawoud Bey photographs and talks with American teenagers, creating a diverse group portrait of a generation that defies our expectations.“
  22. Unnaturalism: “These images are from a series of drawings titled “Unnaturalism” by artist Don Simon. His work examines the impact of industrialization and sprawl on ecosystems.”
  23. Online Shopping: Interesting animation
  24. Immersion
  25. Poverty Statistics that Make Sense
  26. Manufactured Landscapes
  27. Earth to America – Blueman Group
  28. The Product Being Manufactured Is You – Adbusters
  29. I’d like to ship some arsenic and cyanide.
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Posted on February 28, 2009 at 9:09 am by admin · Permalink
In: Alternative Ed, media literacy · Tagged with: , , , , , ,
  • @ Bill

    thanks for sharing these links. These videos are very powerful.
  • Anne
    Thanks for the list. I've seen several (Story of Stuff, the Dove videos, Blueman Group) and am happy to look at the others!
  • Great compilation! I'd add another to the list: Our Deepest Fear by Marianne Williamson, as quoted in the film Coach Carter.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ybt8wXIahQU&...
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