One of last week’s most popular posts was about a new video highlighting tool called Vibby. Vibby allows you to highlight and comment on sections of YouTube videos. You can even break the videos to play only the sections that you highlight in the video’s timeline. An email that I received today from Vibby gave me a good idea about how to use the service to help students analyze debates and presentations.

Vibby is running a contest called Highlight the GOP Debate. In the contest they’re asking people to highlight outrageous moments, exaggerated truths, and
fluffy or meaningless statements. The contest is open to anyone who is a registered Vibby user.

Applications for Education

Reading about Vibby’s Highlight the GOP Debate contest made me think about using Vibby to help students identify and understand key points in debates and presentations. You could ask students to watch videos and identify people who make consistent eye contact, who pace their presentations well, or any other characteristic that you want them to emulate when they deliver their own presentations. You could also have students use Vibby to identify and highlight examples of people using logical fallacies in debates, identify forms of advertising and manipulation, or highlight the best arguments made in a presentation.