Watch Isabella Rossellini Embody the Animal Kingdom’s Most Shocking Maternal Instincts in Mammas

in Biology, Comedy, K-12, Science | May 13th, 2013

Moth­er’s Day can elic­it com­pli­cat­ed emo­tions in the human ani­mal. Not so Moth­er Ham­ster. While you were out to brunch, she was mat­ter-of-fact­ly devour­ing the run­ti­est of her lit­ter. And not because he failed to present her with a bou­quet and flow­ery card. “It’s a good morsel to recoup some of the vit­a­mins and pro­tein that are lost dur­ing child­birth,” she explains with a shrug.

This heart­warm­ing vignette is but one of the rev­e­la­tions in Mam­mas, the lat­est web series from the inquis­i­tive and extreme­ly game Isabel­la Rosselli­ni. Hav­ing embod­ied a vari­ety of insects, arach­nids, and marine life in the sci­ence-based Green Porno and its fol­low-up Seduce Me, the moth­er of two is cur­rent­ly suit­ing up to play some of the Ani­mal King­dom’s most noto­ri­ous moth­ers, from the oppor­tunis­tic Cuck­oo to the self-sac­ri­fic­ing Aus­tralian sub­so­cial crab spi­der (Diaea ergan­dros).

The com­i­cal­ly inven­tive cos­tumes are an added bonus, par­tic­u­lar­ly for any human moth­er (or father) with an aver­sion to dress­ing their ani­mal-lov­ing off­spring in store bought dis­guis­es, come Hal­loween. Catch the com­plete series here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Wild King­dom: Brought to You by Mutu­al of Oma­ha (and YouTube)

Film­ing a Sprint­ing Chee­tah at 1,200 Frames Per Sec­ond

Rainn Wil­son Talks About Life’s Big Ques­tions in His Web Series Meta­phys­i­cal Milk­shake

Ayun Hal­l­i­day thinks Isabel­la Rosselli­ni is the bee’s knees, espe­cial­ly when her glass legs are filled with beer. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 2 ) |

CERN Physicist Explains the Origins of the Universe for Beginners with a Short Animated Video

in Animation, Astronomy, K-12 | April 17th, 2013

If you have kids, you’re going to get the inevitable ques­tion: Where did the uni­verse come from? And you’re like­ly going to take a long pause before try­ing to present the sci­ence of the big bang. Before you head down that path, know this: CERN physi­cist Tom Whyn­tie has cre­at­ed a new TED-ED video that explains, in three ani­mat­ed min­utes, how the uni­verse began, why it’s expand­ing, and oth­er basic phe­nom­e­na that con­cern cos­mol­o­gists and par­ti­cle physi­cists. Phew. By the time you’re done, you might be eager­ly await­ing a where-do-babies-come-from video. That’s hope­ful­ly some­where in TED-ED’s media pipeline too.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

200 Free Kids Edu­ca­tion­al Resources: Video Lessons, Apps, Books, Web­sites & More

Grow­ing Up in the Uni­verse: Richard Dawkins Presents Cap­ti­vat­ing Sci­ence Lec­tures for Kids (1991)

The Sto­ry Of Men­stru­a­tion: Walt Disney’s Sex Ed Film from 1946

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 4 ) |

The BBC’s Horrible Histories Videos Will Crack You Up and Teach You About WWI (and More)

in Comedy, History, K-12 | February 26th, 2013

My 12-year-old, home-schooled son recent­ly expressed an inter­est in study­ing World War I. This was encour­ag­ing, but also nerve-wrack­ing, giv­en the dis­dain that led me to spend most of World His­to­ry pass­ing notes and doo­dling (not in the Lyn­da Bar­ry col­lege course / this will help you absorb the infor­ma­tion bet­ter way). I retained noth­ing of what I’d been for­mal­ly taught. My most sol­id knowl­edge of the peri­od was gleaned from the sec­ond sea­son of Down­ton Abbey and an Audrey Tautou movie that was rat­ed R for sex and vio­lence. (There’s also a fam­i­ly pho­to­graph of us pos­ing on the Sara­je­vo street cor­ner where Franz Fer­di­nand was assas­si­nat­ed, but the sig­nif­i­cance of the spot had to be explained to me first.)

Some online scrab­bling led me to the BBC’s Hor­ri­ble His­to­ries’ brief overview of the “caus­es of World War I” (above). Wow. If only this series—and, ahem, the Internet—had exist­ed when I was the boy’s age! I think it’s safe to say my atten­tion would have been cap­tured. It’s sil­ly, yes, but that’s the whole point. The play­ers’ over-the-top comedic style ensures that even the dri­est of his­tor­i­cal facts will stick, as any­one who’s watched Michael Cera bring Alexan­der Hamil­ton to life in Drunk His­to­ry can attest. It’s the per­fect gate­way for fur­ther study.

Hor­ri­ble His­to­ries’ take on World War I proved  such a hit, the boy imme­di­ate­ly delved into oth­er peri­ods, often when he was sup­posed to be doing oth­er things, like play­ing Minecraft or watch­ing YouTube (tech­ni­cal­ly, I guess this sort of counts). Still it’s grat­i­fy­ing to hear him stud­ding his con­ver­sa­tion with casu­al ref­er­ences to the Bor­gias, the Tudors, and Mar­tin Luther. It makes me want to learn more, or at least bring myself up-to-speed on the videos. In the words of School­house Rock, knowl­edge is pow­er.

A WWI cen­ten­ni­al’s loom­ing, folks. Don’t get caught with your draw­ers down.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Drunk His­to­ry: An Intox­i­cat­ed Look at the Famous Alexan­der Hamil­ton – Aaron Burr Duel

The Dead Authors Pod­cast: H.G. Wells Com­i­cal­ly Revives Lit­er­ary Greats with His Time Machine

School­house Rock at 40: Revis­it a Col­lec­tion of Nos­tal­gia-Induc­ing Edu­ca­tion­al Videos

200 Free Kids Edu­ca­tion­al Resources: Video Lessons, Apps, Books, Web­sites & More

Ayun Hal­l­i­day  grad­u­at­ed from North­west­ern Uni­ver­si­ty with a degree in the­ater and has been mak­ing up for it ever since. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 1 ) |

NASA Presents “The Earth as Art” in a Free eBook and Free iPad App

in Art, e-books, iPad, K-12, Science | December 20th, 2012

In 1960, NASA put its first “Earth-observ­ing envi­ron­men­tal satel­lite” into orbit, and, ever since, these satel­lites have let us observe the dynam­ics of our plan­et in a new way.  They can tell us all about chang­ing weath­er pat­terns, the impact of cli­mate change, what’s hap­pen­ing in the oceans, the coast­lines, rivers and more.

The satel­lites have also demon­strat­ed again and again the Earth’s aes­thet­ic beau­ty, revealed in the pat­terns, shapes, col­ors, and tex­tures seen from space. That beau­ty is what gets cel­e­brat­ed in NASA Earth As Art, a new visu­al pub­li­ca­tion made avail­able as a Free 160-Page eBook (PDF) and a Free iPad App. Fea­tur­ing 75 images in total, the app gives you a very aer­i­al look at places like the Himalayas, Arizona’s Paint­ed Desert, the Lena Riv­er Delta in Rus­sia (shown above), the Byrd Glac­i­er in Antarc­ti­ca, and much more. Enjoy the images, from the sur­re­al to the sub­lime.

You’ll find NASA Earth As Art list­ed in our col­lec­tion of Free eBooks. Also see these relat­ed NASA mate­ri­als:

NASA Archive Col­lects Great Time-Lapse Videos of our Plan­et

Ray Brad­bury Reads Mov­ing Poem on the Eve of NASA’s 1971 Mars Mis­sion

Great Cities at Night: Views from the Inter­na­tion­al Space Sta­tion

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 2 ) |

Introducing KA Lite: An Offline Version of the Khan Academy That Runs on Almost Anything

in Education, K-12, Online Courses, Technology | December 19th, 2012

Salman Khan’s mod­el for free online edu­ca­tion hinges on the micro lecture—brief tuto­ri­als on near­ly every sub­ject under the sun—delivered through YouTube. Launched in 2006, the Khan Acad­e­my now has a library of 3000 videos. That’s not bad, espe­cial­ly for a site with the ele­vat­ed goal of pro­vid­ing a “free world-class edu­ca­tion for any­one any­where.” With the help of hun­dreds of vol­un­teers, the site’s con­tent is acces­si­ble in 18 lan­guages. But even with all of that effort, Khan does­n’t achieve the glob­al reach that it promis­es. The fact is that only 35 per­cent of the world’s pop­u­la­tion has access to the inter­net, which puts the idea of online learn­ing behind a vir­tu­al fire­wall for many peo­ple.

Enter Khan Acad­e­my Lite, oth­er­wise called KA Lite. This new ser­vice tries to work around that fire­wall. Soft­ware devel­op­er Jamie Alexan­dre and a team from UCSD devel­oped an offline ver­sion of Khan’s learn­ing mod­el that can run on just about any­thing. Once you down­load the KA Lite soft­ware and install it on a Lin­ux or Win­dows serv­er, stu­dents can start watch­ing Khan videos and exer­cis­es on computers/devices as tiny and cheap as the $35 Rasp­ber­ry Pi. Actu­al­ly, the whole serv­er can be run on the Rasp­ber­ry Pi!

You can down­load the soft­ware here and find instal­la­tion instruc­tions here. Jamie Alexan­dre offers his own intro­duc­tion to KA Lite here.

Khan Acad­e­my Lite sits nice­ly along­side the free apps released for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch ear­li­er this year. Be sure to check them out.

Find more K‑12 Resources in our col­lec­tion of 200 Free Kids Edu­ca­tion­al Resources: Video Lessons, Apps, Books, Web­sites & More

Kate Rix writes about dig­i­tal media and edu­ca­tion. Read more of her work at and thenifty.blogspot.com.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 5 ) |

PBS Short Video “Bad Behavior Online” Takes on the Phenomenon of Cyberbullying

in Current Affairs, K-12, Law, Media | December 19th, 2012

Inter­net trolls are very touchy peo­ple. Some­times their rage is tar­get­ed at pub­lic fig­ures, insti­tu­tions, or groups who do and say hor­ri­ble things (the West­boro Bap­tist Church comes to mind). More often, the phe­nom­e­non of “trolling” is a free-for-all of absur­dist online pranks or ver­bal abuse direct­ed at any­one and every­one. And far too often, online abuse is specif­i­cal­ly direct­ed at vul­ner­a­ble peo­ple or vic­tims of tragedy. But, as you’ll see from the com­ments on the above video from PBS’s Off­book series (if you care to peruse them) almost noth­ing makes the inter­net angri­er than dis­cus­sions of trolling itself, since so many peo­ple see these con­ver­sa­tions as pre­ludes to cen­sor­ship or nan­ny­ish and uncon­sti­tu­tion­al reg­u­la­tion.

The researchers in the above video don’t, how­ev­er, make any rec­om­men­da­tions for curb­ing speech. Whit­ney Phillips, a lec­tur­er at New York Uni­ver­si­ty, allows for the poten­tial of trolling to open up dia­logues that would oth­er­wise be smoth­ered by taboos. Har­vard University’s Andy Sel­l­ars makes an impor­tant dis­tinc­tion between pub­lic speech reg­u­lat­ed by the gov­ern­ment and that restrict­ed by pri­vate enti­ties, like online ser­vice providers—an impor­tant legal dis­tinc­tion in first amend­ment cas­es (he cites the recent fra­cas over the inflam­ma­to­ry “Inno­cence of Mus­lims” video). Sel­l­ars points out that, at the moment, the author­i­ty for reg­u­lat­ing online speech rests with cor­po­ra­tions (who, unfor­tu­nate­ly, do bow to gov­ern­ment pres­sure, espe­cial­ly abroad). Attempts to reg­u­late the inter­net by the gov­ern­ment have been ham-hand­ed, unpop­u­lar, and most­ly dri­ven by the prof­it-motives of the record­ing and film indus­tries, and Sel­l­ars does­n’t address them.

Some attempts at leg­is­la­tion have specif­i­cal­ly tar­get­ed the cher­ished cul­ture of online anonymi­ty in order to deal with the ugly phe­nom­e­non of cyber­bul­ly­ing. Sel­l­ars defends the impor­tance of anonymi­ty, say­ing it pro­tects vic­tims of real world abuse and oppres­sion from being iden­ti­fied and tar­get­ed if they speak out on safe spaces on the inter­net. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, anonymi­ty can also enable what Fordham’s Alice Mar­wick calls the “online dis­in­hi­bi­tion effect,” a psy­cho­log­i­cal term for the free­dom trolls feel to say abu­sive things online that they would nev­er say in per­son.

Mar­wick dis­cuss­es this effect in the con­text of what she calls “aggres­sive speech acts” but allows that the preva­lence of bul­ly­ing on Face­book, which ties online iden­ti­ties to real names and faces, acts as a counter-exam­ple to the the­o­ry that anonymi­ty is sole­ly respon­si­ble for online abuse. She frames her research as tak­ing a look at our cul­tur­al val­ues and “see­ing how those play out in tech­ni­cal spaces” and points out that an exclu­sive focus on cyber­bul­ly­ing ignores the range of oth­er, offline behav­iors gen­er­al­ly present in—most dis­turbing­ly—cas­es of sui­cide fol­low­ing online bul­ly­ing. While the advo­ca­cy group Cyber­bul­ly­ing Research Cen­ter has adopt­ed the term “cyber­bul­li­cide,” defined as “sui­cide indi­rect­ly or direct­ly influ­enced by expe­ri­ences with online aggres­sion,” and offers pol­i­cy sug­ges­tions to deal with the prob­lem, Mar­wick is more cir­cum­spect. She calls these cas­es “com­pli­cat­ed” and says that they don’t war­rant restrict­ing con­tent but instead improv­ing respons­es to kids who need help.

Com­pli­cat­ed is pre­cise­ly the word for the tan­gle of issues relat­ing to inter­net speech. After watch­ing the bal­anced, if cur­so­ry, dis­cus­sion above, how­ev­er, I found the respons­es of the trolls baf­fling and lack­ing all pro­por­tion, since no one in the video calls for leg­is­la­tion to lim­it online speech. But that’s instruc­tive. Trolling is a per­va­sive hum sur­round­ing almost all pop­u­lar online con­tent. Some­times it’s polit­i­cal­ly point­ed, some­times it’s clever or sur­re­al­ly fun­ny, some­times it’s just low-lev­el noise, and some­times it’s a kind of rage-filled ado­les­cent vicious­ness that is gen­uine­ly unset­tling and hard to under­stand.

Josh Jones is a doc­tor­al can­di­date in Eng­lish at Ford­ham Uni­ver­si­ty and a co-founder and for­mer man­ag­ing edi­tor of Guer­ni­ca / A Mag­a­zine of Arts and Pol­i­tics.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

A Crash Course in English Literature: A New Video Series by Best-Selling Author John Green

in English Language, K-12, Literature | December 10th, 2012

There’s no doubt that a sin­gle inspir­ing teacher can have a pro­found impact on a stu­den­t’s life, but what about the duds? The apoplec­tic nun, the tapped out fos­sil, the bit­ter young man? If there’s dead­wood in your edu­ca­tion­al his­to­ry, you owe it to your­self to spend some time with John Green. The charis­mat­ic author and nerd­fight­er is fol­low­ing up his online video series Crash Course World His­to­ry, with the new mini series, Crash Course Eng­lish Lit­er­a­ture.

Think Shake­speare is bor­ing? It’s a posi­tion you’ll be hard pressed to main­tain after hear­ing Green’s take on Romeo and Juli­et, a ver­i­ta­ble luge of facts, triv­ia, cute graph­ics, frank-ish sex talk, corny jokes and iambic low­down. Extra cred­it for ref­er­enc­ing Harley Granville-Bark­er, the turn of the cen­tu­ry quin­tu­ple-threat who sum­ma­rized the play as “a tragedy of youth as youth sees it”.

Hav­ing laid down a few ground rules in episode one, Green is prepar­ing to take on Fitzger­ald, Salinger, and Emi­ly Dick­in­son. If any of these names dredge up unpleas­ant mem­o­ries, relax. Green is not going to make you parse sym­bols and autho­r­i­al intent. His schtick is proud­ly pop­ulist, a Pee­Wee’s Play­house open to those who seek knowl­edge, as well as those whom expe­ri­ence has taught to resist.

Crash Course Eng­lish Lit­er­a­ture will be added to our new col­lec­tion, 200 Free Kids Edu­ca­tion­al Resources: Video Lessons, Apps, Books, Web­sites & More.

More advanced cours­es can be found in the Lit­er­a­ture sec­tion of our col­lec­tion of 575 Free Cours­es Online.

- Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author whose lat­est con­tri­bu­tion to the canon of Eng­lish Lit­er­a­ture is spec­tac­u­lar­ly sched­uled for a day after Christ­mas release.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 1 ) |

Schoolhouse Rock: Revisit a Collection of Nostalgia-Inducing Educational Videos

in Animation, Education, K-12, Television | December 6th, 2012

Some­times a tune lives in your head and you hum it now and again with­out any rec­ol­lec­tion of where it orig­i­nal­ly came from. Chances are, if you grew up in the Unit­ed States watch­ing Sat­ur­day morn­ing car­toons, that tune came from School­house Rock.

Like so many of its biggest fans, School­house Rock is now offi­cial­ly in its 40s. This year marks the 40th anniver­sary of the pilot seg­ment, Three is a Mag­ic Num­ber, whose melody and lyrics ooze the type of hip­pie Sun­shine Fam­i­ly whole­some­ness so abun­dant in ‘70s children’s pro­gram­ming.

Man and a woman had a lit­tle baby,

Yes they did.

They had three in the fam­i­ly.

And that’s a mag­ic num­ber

Fol­low that up with School­house Rock’s win­ning for­mu­la: sim­ple, hum­ma­ble tunes mixed with math fact lyrics.

3–6‑9, 12–15-18, 21–24-27, 30.
3–6‑9, 12–15-18, 21–24-27, 30.

School­house Rock start­ed out as an adver­tis­ing ven­ture on ABC, dreamed up by an exec­u­tive whose son was strug­gling to mem­o­rize his mul­ti­pli­ca­tion tables. But it grew into the most pop­u­lar inter­sti­tial pro­gram­ming (short vignettes shown between TV seg­ments) in mod­ern tele­vi­sion.

One of the most mem­o­rable melodies is Blos­som Dearie’s sweet and melan­choly Fig­ure Eight, broad­cast in Feb­ru­ary, 1973. This one was cov­ered by Eliot Smith in a decid­ed­ly less upbeat ver­sion.

With­out a doubt these three-minute ani­ma­tions (by Loonie Tunes ani­ma­tor Chuck Jones) are some of the best mod­ern edu­ca­tion­al videos around. Whose social stud­ies teacher didn’t show this tune­ful expla­na­tion of the leg­isla­tive process dur­ing class?

And this one about the Con­sti­tu­tion, well I have to admit that it still chokes me up.

The man behind the vast major­i­ty of the music is Bob Dor­ough, a pianist who worked with Miles Davis and Allen Gins­berg before becom­ing the voice and main com­pos­er for School­house Rock.


The series took on near­ly every sub­ject, from mul­ti­pli­ca­tion and gram­mar to sci­ence and Amer­i­can gov­ern­ment. Today’s edu­ca­tion­al soft­ware devel­op­ers would kill to make gram­mar as fun as Con­junc­tion Junc­tion and Lol­ly, Lol­ly, Lol­ly Get Your Adverbs Here.  The pro­duc­ers didn’t shy away from more weighty issues either. Take a lis­ten to this lit­tle dit­ty on the theme of Amer­i­can ter­ri­to­r­i­al expan­sion.

The series took a break dur­ing the 1980s but picked up again in the mid-’90s with Mon­ey Rock. In 2009 came Earth Rock. Both fea­tured a more gloom-and-doom feel than the inspir­ing tone of the ear­li­er School­house Rock iter­a­tions.

Some­times the orig­i­nal real­ly is the best.

You can pur­chase the com­plete set of School­house Rock videos on Ama­zon. We’ve also added a link to this post in our new col­lec­tion: 200 Free Kids Edu­ca­tion­al Resources: Video Lessons, Apps, Books, Web­sites & More

Kate Rix writes about dig­i­tal media and edu­ca­tion. Read more of her work at and thenifty.blogspot.com. 

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 5 ) |

« Go Back — More in this category... »
Quantcast