Google and the National Archives and Records Administration are offering National Archives video on Google Video. 101 selections are currently available ranging from an 1884 clip of a Spanish dancer, to government newsreels from the 40's.
From the Press Release...
"Students and researchers whether in San Francisco or Bangladesh can watch remarkable video such as World War II newsreels and the story of Apollo 11 - the historic first landing on the Moon."
So far my favorite is The John Glenn Story. They don't make movies like this anymore... Makes me nostalgic for when I was in 4th grade and when on most Friday afternoons the teacher would share just about any film she could find. The main criteria being basically how big was the film can. The bigger the can, the longer the film. Makes me think that a nice feature to add to Google Video would be the Friday Afternoon Button. The button would select a random, classroom safe video for just such occasions. (just joking... :-) )
But seriously, it is quite amazing what we as teachers can now have access to to help prepare a lesson or a unit of study. With more and more audio and video content making its way on to the web, this kind of access requires that schools have adequate projection equipment. At Lewis we have worked hard to place dataprojectors and interactive whiteboards in most of our classrooms. We have even been able to find funds to mount them on the ceiling in 4 of our rooms. We hope to have them all mounted at some point, but finding the funding to do so is a problem.
By way of Lifehacker...
Technorati Tags: Google Video, John Glenn, National Archives