Blog Posts About: explainer

This video, 113th title, is now available for embedding, downloading, or displaying via the Common Craft video library. It's a part of our series on study skills and meant to help educators teach the concept of team work.

Watch it in full for a limited time.

What it Teaches:

Using an example of a robot building competition, this video follows the story of two teams with different approaches to teamwork. Using their example, we can see what works, or not, for winning the competition. It teaches:

• What all successful teams have in common
• Why clear communication is more important than skills or experience
• How to develop a sense of team strengths and weaknesses
• Why some teams don’t succeed
• What teams can do to improve their weaknesses

Watch the Video

Note: Each Common Craft video comes with a lesson plan that makes teaching easier. Curious? Download the lesson plan for the video above (PDF).

This video, 115th title, is now available for embedding, downloading, or displaying in the Common Craft video library. It's part of our Internet Safety Series and meant to help build aware awareness of the issue of harassment.

Watch it in full for a limited time

What it Teaches:

This video follows the story of a person being harassed online. The trouble starts with mild language in a discussion forum and then escalates to more serious behavior over time. It teaches:

• How to recognize online harassment
• Common tactics of harassers
• What to do if you’re being harassed
• Why it’s important to save messages from harassers
• Whom to contact

Watch the Video

Video Preview:

We created this short video explain the intent of this video and how to use it:

Note: Each Common Craft video comes with a lesson plan that makes teaching easier. Curious? Download the lesson plan for the video above (PDF).

In 2008, we took on the challenge of explaining the Electoral College in a way that was apolitical and easy to understand.

To be effective, it had to be timeless and use visuals to make the process clear. Today, twelve years later, the video remains one of our favorites and continues to earn attention. The only change we've made is to update the years we show at the beginning of the video.

Please feel free to share the video via YouTube.

I'm sure you've sat through presentations and felt confused and unmotivated. Often, it's not the information, but how it is presented. We want to help by sharing specific steps anyone can take to make their presentations clearer and more understandable.

This video, 114th title, is now available for embedding, downloading, or displaying in the Common Craft video library.

Watch it in full for a limited time.

What it Teaches:

When presenting information, it’s easy to be focused on sharing the right information. The problem is that information isn’t useful unless it is communicated clearly. This video shares useful tips that will help any presentation become more understandable. It teaches:

• Why your presentation’s mission will increase clarity
• How to avoid audience confusion
• Why background and context help your points shine
• How to organize a presentation using an outline
• How to use visuals to increase clarity
• What you can do to prepare for your presentation

Watch the Video

Video Preview:

Watch a preview for the new video above that shares highlights and discusses why we made it and for whom. Watch it on YouTube.

Note: Each Common Craft video comes with a lesson plan that makes teaching easier. Curious? Download the lesson plan for the video above (PDF).

Documents play the same role they always have, but how we create and share them has evolved significantly. This video explains online documents and how they differ from local documents that are saved on a computer. If you know students or anyone who needs a clearer understanding of online documents, this video will help.

This video, our 110th title, is now available in the Common Craft video library. You can watch it in full for a limited time.

What it Teaches:

For many years, documents lived on our computers. When online documents came along, they started to live on the internet and that changed how we created and shared them. This video explains how online documents differ from local documents saved on a computer. It teaches:

• What makes a document local versus online
• Why local documents represent a risk and make collaboration difficult
• How to create and share an online document
• Why collaboration is easier with an online document
• What kinds of documents are online documents

Watch the Video

Thanks to the internet, a different kind of meeting is possible. Instead of attendees having to travel to meet, they can now participate in web conferences or webinars from anywhere with an internet connection. This type of meeting is becoming more popular and understanding it is an essential 21st-century skill.

This video explains the basics of web conferencing and how it’s used.

What it Teaches:

Meeting face-to-face is great, but it can be expensive and difficult to plan. That’s why web conferencing is becoming more popular. These systems allow a group to connect and share information using only an internet connection. This video explains the basics, It teaches:

• Why face-to-face meetings are cumbersome and expensive
• How web conferencing can be used to accomplish the same goals
• How to create a web conference and invite attendees
• What features are often used in web conferences
• Why web conferencing can be more effective than normal meetings

Watch the Video

Note: Each Common Craft video comes with a lesson plan that makes teaching easier. Curious? Download the lesson plan for the video above (PDF).

An Update: Plagiarism Explained

Our video that explains plagiarism is one of our most popular and we saw an opportunity to improve the video's quality. Recently we created a cleaner, clearer and easier to understand version of the video. If you are a Common Craft member, you might consider switching to using the new version.

Recent Common Craft Videos

We now have 108 explainer videos in our library. Each video is designed to explain a subject so you don't have to. Common Craft videos can help save time in your classroom, course, training session or presentation. Here are the most recent additions:

• Private or Incognito Browsing
• Clear Communication in Email
• URLs and Web Addresses
• Two Factor Authentication
• Flowchart

Ready to use Common Craft in your teaching? Download our video files, embed the videos or display them in your classroom.