“Uncovering Motives”, “Generating Possibilities” or perhaps “Inferencing”. I think all these Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) can be discussed with this lovely video.

These thinking skills make it seem like a good pre-reading activity for teaching the story “Thank You Ma’m” by Langston Hughes (in our literature program) despite the fact that the boy depicted in the video isn’t a teenager. The video isn’t childish so I believe the students will not have a problem.

Though frankly, I actually began working on the video as a way to use “modals” in context. So you’ll see that element there too.

Some of you may notice that this video wasn’t made on the EDPUZZLE site, which I love and use frequently. I’m taking an in service training course on EDTECH with Hishtalmoodle (highly recommended, interesting & with excellent support for participants) and it seems there is a lot of redundancy in the field of educational technology. Many programs offer similar services. As part of the course requirements I experimented using Zaption. I did not conduct an in-depth comparison of the two sites but am very happy with the large (and constantly growing larger) set of comprehensive features for use in class that Edpuzzle offers and did not find any reason to switch programs. In addition I am not happy with the way the Zaption is displayed when embedded in the blog. Please note that you must scroll sideways to see the questions.

Once again, thanks to the blog “Film English” for introducing me to this video.