Videos can be a good teaching resource, but they need to be used as part of lesson rather than being the lesson. Annenberg Media provides lesson plans that model using video as a part of the lesson rather than using video as the lesson. Lesson plans are categorized by content and grade level. Most of the lesson plans include free online videos. To find lessons that include free online videos look for a small “VOD” symbol attached near the title of each lesson plan. Clicking the VOD symbol will launch a video player in a new window.

Applications for Education
Earlier in my teaching career I was guilty of using videos as the lesson rather than a part of the lesson. I can confidently say that I’m not the only social studies teacher guilty of that. Fortunately for my students, I learned from my mistakes and have since learned to use video (mostly short ones these days) as a part of my lesson plans rather than using videos as my lesson plans. Annenberg Media’s free media-based lesson plans provide teachers with lesson plans using video as a part of a lesson plan for a wide variety of topics and grade levels.