Troy Headrick
The American University in Cairo
Maadi, Cairo, Egypt
contact@savvy-women-magazine.com
I want to use a lot of video in my blogs. When I’m reading blogs myself (and that’s pretty often), I really enjoy those that are multimedia. That may at least partly be true because I don’t have a TV at home (and haven’t owned one of the contraptions now for about seven years) which means that viewing such vids, on ye ole world wide web, is like my one and only television substitute.
With all that in mind, I want to share my favorite video site with you. It’s called Fora.TV. One of the things I really like about this particular webpage–other than the fabulous videos available there–is the voiceover that says (in a wonderful British accent) “Fora.TV, the world is thinking” whenever a person clicks the play button of any of its offerings.
If asked to provide a pithy description of Fora.TV, I’d call it “YouTube with a brain.” Have a look and you’ll see what I mean.
(By the way, the site has tons of high-quality videos about love and sex and politics and men and war and peace and food and children and women and you name it.)
While I was preparing this piece, I ran across a short, 28-minute talk by Lisa Lillien, bestselling author, founder of the wildly popular Hungry-girl.com site, and self-described “food obsessed” individual. The video is mostly a Q/A session at one of Lillien’s recent book signings in the lovely and talented Denver, Colorado. To be completely honest with you, I’d never heard of Lillien before viewing this, but I found her to be interesting and funny. In fact, bits and pieces of her brief, preliminary talk feel just like stand-up comedy.
I’d also recommend this video as well from the Fora.TV site. It’s a talk by two writers who’ve recently published a book that’s premised on the argument that men are exactly like chimpanzees.
OK, raise your hands if you’re surprised by such a claim.
By my count, not many hands went up.
Tags: Video
June 2nd, 2009 at 5:47 am
I am also a university instructor (mathematics education). Last year I home-schooled my daughter and she took classes at Village Home School. I can tell you that the experience is every bit as good a the video shows and truly exemplifies student-centered learning. My only wish is that schools like this existed for everyone.
We had to move back to the public school system because both my husband and I need to work. Thankfully it is at a charter school that adopts a similar philosophy. We have not given up the idea of homeschooling as all our time together is home-education but part of her day is also spent at a school aiming at the kind of education plan Village home has already perfected and done so well.