With the support of JISC (part of the Higher Education Funding Council of England) www.theFaculties.org has made approximately 300 films of lecturers speaking on themes and topics from the A-level curriculum.

More than 30 of those themes are in Psychology  – see www.thepsychologyfaculty.org  More will follow in the coming weeks. The videos also offer advice to A-level students about where they might study Psychology at University, and about the careers that can follow their degree. .

Although this resource has only just been launched it is promised that in time it will cover the entire UK A-level curriculum. It is possible on the site for Psychology teachers and students to suggest further topics and ways in which the expertise of academic Psychologists can be employed in the secondary school classroom.

www.thepsychologyfaculty.org

The Brain: A Secret History-1. Mind Control  – available until Jan 27th. This ep will be repeated on bbc4 on Jan 11th. Next ep is on – emotion (jan 13th, then 14th)

How Drugs Work – 1. Cannabis – available until Jan 27th This ep will be repeated on BBC3 on Jan 9th, 10th, 11th, and 13th. Next ep is on – ecstasy (Jan 13th, 14th & 16th)

What Makes Us Clever? A Horizon Guide to Intelligence – available until Jan 19th This ep will be repeated on BBC4 on Jan 12th

EDIT 11.33 (thanks to Hilary Paul on psychexchange):  10 things you need to know about losing weight is here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00ksh7c/10_Things_You_Need_to_Know_About_Losing_Weight/ and available until Jan 13th (can’t find it’s proper site so not sure if it’s being repeated)

V. frustrating that these things get consigned to the iplayer cliff edge of doom…there are (illegal I assume) ways to download them but given they’re repeated this week it should be possible to record them!

Before we get back to school and we (or at least I) am too busy to think about anything much beyond getting through the weeks, I thought I’d put a bit more of a substantive post up.  This is about how I use shared bookmarks to help me store resources, provide ‘extra reading’ (or media) for students, and use this alongside psychexchange resources.

If we go to www.delicious.com/sjgknight.  By using the ‘tag bundles’ on the right, you can select ‘psychology’ (under ‘subject’) and relationships (under ‘PsychTopics’).  At the moment this will bring up about 70 bookmarks, we’ll narrow that down again to ‘sexual.selection’ bookmarks (see video for more detail on using delicious)

Using the same principles, you can navigate all of my bookmarks – subject, to topic.  Within each topic you can see which sub-areas have been most frequently tagged (Eyewitness testimony, or ‘EWT’ under ‘memory’, for example).

Using the ‘sexual selection’ bookmarks, I’ve used the Seinfeld clip www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsusKuZ1uL0 to get students thinking about sexual selection and attraction.

Following that you could use the videos here: http://www.delicious.com/sjgknight/relationships+sexual.selection+video

I like to split the students into groups of about 3, each with a laptop and ask them to watch 1 or 2 videos each.  The question prompts here could be used alongside these.  The session could also involve reading a selection of articles, either provided for students or of their choice from the original sexual selection bookmarks.

Students could be encouraged to think about how these bits of evidence fit into the relationships scheme of work by using an essay grid and placing each bit in it.

This will hopefully be the first in a series of posts of this nature so feedback – even if it’s to say ‘don’t bother’ would be much appreciated so I can keep my posts as useful as possible.  I’d like to use combinations of people’s resources in the future so I’ll keep an eye out for ways I can do this, but if you have an idea then contact me via psychexchange.  My aim is to write a few posts which ‘bundle’ media & psychexchange resources for a full lesson or set of lesson ideas.

If you want to use delicious there are a couple of ways – simply using my & other people’s bookmarks, or by creating your own account.  If you take the latter option, you can tailor bookmarks to your classess/interests, and also join my network – providing a ‘searchable’ network of bookmarks including mine and yours.  This also allows you to link with other subjects as MrESpiers – a sociology teacher – and I have done.  My (small) network is here.  We also both tweet, sjgknight and MrESpiers.

The movie was made using the opensource CamStudio and (also opensource) Virtual Magnifying Glass with editing in Windows Live Moviemaker.

PsychClips is a great new web site for psychology teachers to share video and audio clips that are hosted on youtube-type sites.

There are already almost 100 video clips on PsychClips and with other psychology teachers help this should grow considerably. Some of the videos are the better-known ones such as the Milgram and Zimbardo clips but there are already some lesser-known ones that psychology teachers may not have seen before embedded on the site.

The site is free although you do have to register. Teachers who have already registered for PsychExchange can use their existing user name and password to access PsychClips.

Possibly the best feature of PsychClips is the book-marking facility. Teachers can add clips to their own profile so that they have instant access to these psychology clips when they log on. This is so useful for teachers who have access to networked interactive white-boards in their classroom – like me.

For a list of youtube-type video sharing sites check out yube.co.uk

Steve Taylor from onlineclassroom.tv has kindly provided psychnews.co.uk with an excellent DVD to give away as a prize.

Classic Studies in Psychology 1 is a best selling, smashing DVD, which consists of a five short video programmes designed to give teachers the flexibility to integrate illustrative video material into their lessons. This compact DVD features original footage, up to date expert analysis and reinforcing graphics to bring five major studies to life.

The five classic studies include the Strange Situation, Bandura on Social Learning, Loftus on Eye Witness Testimony, Milgram’s Experiments on Obedience and Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment.

To win the DVD is very easy really. All you have to do is subscribe to this site (psychnews.co.uk) by entering your email into the box on the right and following a link in your email which activates your subscription.  You will then be entered into the free draw.

On April 30th your email will be picked out (somehow randomly – although I am not quite sure which random method I should use – suggestions welcome) and give the lucky recipient a week to reply to the email. If this recipient does not reply, I will do the same random procedure again until somebody wins the classic studies psychology 1 DVD.

I promise that the winner will not be an employee of psychnews (psychnews doesn’t have any employees) or any member of psychnews’ family (as nobody related to psychnews reads this blog as far as I know).

Anybody who already subscribes to this site will automatically be entered into the prize draw although you could always subscribe again with an alternative email to double your chance of winning the prize. Obviously all email addresses will have to be genuine for this crafty way of winning to work.

There is a review of the DVD here.

Uniview have announced today that they are to film Zimbardo’s talk at the Emmanuel Centre in London. The talk is on the afternoons of Tuesday 18 March and Wednesday 19 March 2008. The DVD ‘Zimbardo Speaks’, will be available shortly afterwards.

Below is the press release.

South West Conferences present a unique opportunity for A level Psychology students to hear legendary Professor Zimbardo talk about his research and new book, and it’s all being caught on film!March is an exciting time for UK students of psychology as The Emmanuel Centre in London welcomes Professor Philip G. Zimbardo to discuss his past research and current book. The revision conference is organised by South West Conferences, a small consultancy company specialising in psychology A level students conferences and Teacher INSET courses, run by psychology teacher and author Cara Flanagan.Professor Zimbardo has previously taught at Yale, Columbia and NYU but was a professor at the Stanford University from 1968 up until his recent retirement. Zimbardo has won many awards for his work and has become a media personality as a result of his captivating studies. He has also been president of both the Western Psychological Association and the American Psychological Association.Zimbardo is probably best known for his fascinating 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment, whereby college students were assigned the role of guard or inmate in order to study the psychological and behavioural effects of imprisonment. Those selected at random to be ‘guards’ became so sadistic and those acting as ‘prisoners’ so depressed, that the two-week study was stopped after just six days. The study has created such public and media interest that a feature-length film is currently being made by Maverick Films and directed by Oscar winning director, Christopher McQuarrie.

The ATP-conference website is running a video competition for the best A level psychology related online video. There are some great and unusual videos already linked to, but feel free to add your links to win a prize.

Youtube is easily winning in terms of video providers but there are others out there – try yube.co.uk and others for a wider look. If you do have links to good videos, which are useful to psychology teachers, please do add them to the psychotoobies page. Thanks.