Video trivia (but not trivial): For all major holidays, end of the six weeks, flu season, Friday afternoons, and I-can’t-make-it-until-the-next-holiday-so-I’m-taking-a-personal-day days.

  1. Students have worked hard studying for final exams. You should reward them by showing their favorite movie when they have all finished the test. True or False?
  2. A-day classes are ahead of B-day classes. You should ask a student to bring a movie from home to entertain A-day classes while you catch up on grading. True or False?
  3. Pearl Harbor just came out on video this week. You should rent a copy for the sub to show when you take your personal day. True or False?
  4. What channel is Romeo and Juliet playing on? Ms. Soandso is showing it to her English classes and you don’t feel good today so you want to tune in and show it to your math classes.
  5. You rented the new Disney animated movie to show your personal kids. You want to get your money’s worth out of it, so you bring it to school to show your students. There’s a form or something that you have to have signed. True or False?
  6. You have a VCR in your classroom from when students showed projects and you brought a video to play today. You vaguely remember an email the librarian sent out at the beginning of the year reminding teachers about copyright/fair use laws for showing videos in a classroom, and think the video you plan to show today might be questionable. Youdecide to go ahead and show the video because the students will enjoy it andnothing bad ever happens when teachers show videos that don’t meet all the legal requirements. Good idea or bad idea?

Answers

  1. False. It is a violation of copyright/fair use laws to show videos as a reward. Any video shown in a classroom at anytime must directly meet the objective stated in the lesson plan for that time.
  2. False. Refer to answer 1.
  3. Trick question. The correct answer is True, if the content of Pearl Harbor is part of your curriculum and covers what you have in your lesson plan andif Mr. Muncy signs a video request form three days prior to the day you plan to show the video and if Pearl Harbor has enough correct factual information to be forth showing and if there are no instructional videos available which would have a more direct application to what you teach. That’s a lot of ifs. Otherwise, the correct answer is False.
  4. No channel. Romeo and Juliet is English curriculum, not math curriculum.
  5. True. Refer to answer 3. Replace Pirates of the Caribbean II with the title of the movie you rented.
  6. Bad Idea. You never know when a) (not likely) the video police will be on campus or b) (can you afford to take a chance?) that child in your 2nd block class who has hated you since you took up her cell phone will go home and tell her mother, Mrs. I’m-looking-for-a-cause-and-you’re-it, what she saw in class today and before you know it you’re reading about yourself in the DRC, the video police step in and you lose your teaching certificate, you use all your savings to hire a lawyer to get your teaching certificate back, and your librarian, whom you should have listened to in the first place, gets fired.