Our Product is Explanation
All posts for “education”
Music Makes Explanations Remarkable
Posted by: leelefever on September 13, 2012- 10:13am
Categories: education, Great Explanations, music, remarkable, video
Recently we saw Ira Glass, the host of the popular radio show and podcast This American Life, speak about "Reinventing Radio." One of his first points was about the seriousness of how news and events are usually covered. His show strives to be different - and look for ways to approach news from an original and remarkable perspective.
My first thought was to compare this to education and especially educational videos. So many of them are so very serious. I will teach you this...you are... Continue Reading
Late last year I was invited to present at an event called Big Ideas Fest, which focuses on change and inspiration related to K-20 education. My presentation, entitled "Viral to Valuable" was about 15 minutes long and appeared during a track of the conference called "Scale and Spread", which related to scaling and spreading an idea. If you're interested in the Common Craft story and how we came to focus our business on video as a digital product, etc., I tell the story in this video:
To find... Continue Reading
New Video: Plagiarism Explained by Common Craft
Posted by: leelefever on October 25, 2011- 10:26am
Categories: Common Craft Video, education, Explanation, ourwork, plagiarism, video
Today we’re publishing a new video: Plagiarism Explained by Common Craft
One of our most suggested titles, this video is aimed at educators who are on the front lines of helping students of all ages understand and avoid plagiarism.
In researching this video it became clear that there are two types of plagiarism - intentional and unintentional. While we cover intentional plagiarism, we also highlight the situation where a person has positive intentions, but lacks information about what... Continue Reading
It’s taken years and lots of discussions with our fans to understand the answer to the simple question: what is Common Craft for? We’re just a small company, we don’t have a research department or salespeople pounding the pavement. We have to learn from what people say online, in email, discussion and phone calls. The summary of this input has helped us define the future of Common Craft and the new direction we’re taking this summer.
For example, just yesterday we received messages that... Continue Reading
John Papola and Russ Roberts at http://EconStories.tv have made a second video that uses rap and a very well-produced music video to contrast the economic thoeries that are a big part of the political debate about what to do with a failing economy. I'm really impressed with the format and content - and the song is actually kind of catchy too.
Fight of the Century: Keynes Vs. Hayek - Round Two:
It's true. Sachi and I are attending the Texas Library Association Conference in Austin, April 12-15th. I will be presenting on Thursday the 14th at 2pm and my talk is called "The Art of Explanation - in Plain English". I hope you'll come.
This will be our first library conference and we're really excited to meet people like you and take it all in. Librarians are among our most dedicated fans and this conference is one of the biggest events in the library world. If you're going to the... Continue Reading
Citrix GoToTraining - Custom Video
Posted by: leelefever on January 4, 2011- 4:00pm
Categories: Custom Video, Custom Video, education, our work, training
The world of education and training has seen its share of innovation recently. After hundreds of years of in-person stand-up training, educators have new options. Products like GoToTraining now allow teachers to host classes online. While a number of teachers have made the jump to online training, there are many who have valid concerns about the impact on the training experience.
This custom video is designed to introduce GoToTraining and outline some of the features that make online... Continue Reading
Project Based Learning - Explained: A Custom Video Project with BIE
Posted by: leelefever on December 13, 2010- 4:00pm
Categories: Custom Video, education, Explanation, ourwork, teaching, video
When people ask about the inspiration for our style of videos, I often say that our videos reflect the way that I wish I had learned in school. My learning style wasn't a good match for the way I was taught.
Recently we completed a custom video project with the Buck Institute for Education (BIE) that focuses on a Project Based Learning or "PBL", and boy did it open my eyes. I can now see that I needed teachers who put PBL to work. I needed to get up from my desk and engage. I needed to work on... Continue Reading
Richard Byrne over at Free Tech for Teachers has been one of our biggest supporters in the edu-blogging world and was kind enough to highlight a few of our videos in a recent post called "Three Common Craft Videos That Should Be In Your Training Library." In this post, Richard states:
I like Common Craft videos for the clear simplicity of their presentations. For that reason I actually purchase copies of the videos to save on my hard drive. I encourage you to do the same if you use their... Continue Reading
Meet Us at NECC (National Educational Computing Conference)
Sachi and I will be attending the National Educational Computing Conference (NECC) later this month in Washington DC. This will be our first time attending the conference, so you may see us wandering around with lost looks on our faces.
Because it's such a huge conference, we're hosting a Tweetup [?] so that we can be sure to meet you. Come say hello!
Date: Monday June 29th, 2009
Time: 4:30-6pm
Location: Old Dominion Brew House - Convention Center (we've reserved a room in the back) Map
You... Continue Reading