5min.com bills itself as a “5 minute videopedia.” The basic concept of the site is that they offer a wide variety of “How to’s” or “Do-it-yourself” (DIY) videos all within the context of 5 minutes lessons in easy to find categories. Although as I browsed through there were some videos that were greater than 10 minutes and many videos around the 6 and 7 minute mark. There are a lot of educational videos on the site but what really attracted me to the site was the fact that they had a substantial category and library of videos dedicated to music. So my post will mainly concentrate on that. In fact within the main topic of music they had 10 subtopics of music DIY videos; Bass Guitar, Beat Box, DJ, Drums, Guitar, Piano, Sound (Audio and Computer software), Wind and Brass, World music and “other” music videos. Scanning through some of the videos I got a pretty good sense that there were a wide variety in the type and quality of videos. Some videos weren’t the greatest quality but still contained good content. Many videos also appeared to be taken from instructional DVDs and some contained visual support for learners such as an overlay of a guitar or bass fret board and piano keyboard that indicated where to place your fingers. If I were a beginner I would find these videos very helpful. I’m excited to find this site because this will provide my students, especially my beginning students, with an extra resource that they can use to help clarify concepts that we talk about in class. Particularly in starting out on an instrument. My time with my beginning 6th graders is only 30 minutes for 1 day a week. Having students reference these videos will help them to get started on their instrument, allow them to learn some of the important basics of cleaning and caring for their instruments yet will allow me to move on from those concepts and to get them to play their instrument.
This is a great web 2.0 tool because they allow users to customize their video feeds. Users can also comment and vote on their favorite videos. Users can also upload their own DIY. They promote a feed system or embedding tool that allows you to post a seed to your website or blog.
Some cons regarding the site are that the videos are preloaded with commercials, I found the site to be a little sluggish and I’m pretty sure it’s not my connection and there was a wide variety of video quality. Overall I would consider it to be an extremely effective tool and a good resource for students and teachers alike.
Here's an example of a video seed from the site that you can embed into your blog and/or website:
Thanh, this is awesome! I'm going to add it to my AR database. Thanks for all of the great details and thorough description. Saves me time, and has already motivated me to go to the site. Very helpful! Keep up the great work!
ReplyDeleteThanh,
ReplyDeleteI can always rely on you to find such valuable and fun tools. This seems like such an important tool both at home and in school (any subject and grade level). For Christmas two years ago I had gotten a gift which was a do it yourself book titled, Show Me How: 500 Things you should know. It sounds similar to 5min.com because it gives step-by-step instructions for life from the everyday to the exotic. I've spent hours just looking through this 550 page book. What's great about your web 2.0 tool is the fact that it is the fast version of how to learn pretty much anything. I am very excited to explore 5min further to see what else I can learn at a quick pace.
Thanks for the site. Talk to you soon.
Your friend,
Tyson