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Five-Minute Film Festival

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Edutopia’s VideoAmy curates themed playlists of YouTube videos for educators and students.

The end of school is near, and it's time for that springtime tradition of long-winded uplifting graduation speeches and heartfelt off-key renditions of the Star Spangled Banner. At the university level, celebrities don robes and dole out kernels of wisdom to fresh-faced graduates. At high schools around the world, eager valedictorians wax poetic about the future while fidgety seniors toss beach balls around. Even for the very youngest students, graduation ceremonies are made into special occasions and flowery speeches are brought forth.

I promise you won't have to sit through any yawn-inducing hour-long dispatches. Instead, I've got the most inspirational moments and the most ridiculous mishaps during commencement ceremonies that I could find. Enjoy, despite the shaky cameras and poor audio that seem to be the hallmark of all graduation speech videos!

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Teachers who love hands-on learning and the DIY movement are a match made in heaven -- and nowhere is this better represented than the Maker Faire. I'm lucky enough to have participated in this event three times, as both a visitor and a maker, and it's still challenging to describe this celebration of people-powered technology, art, science and ingenuity, where you are as likely to encounter fire-breathing robots as you are fluffy electric cupcake cars. Since 2006, Maker Faires have been held annually in the San Francisco Bay Area, and there have been Maker Faires in Austin, Detroit and New York, with community-organized Mini Maker Faires sprouting up around the country. And the 7th annual Bay Area Maker Faire is this weekend, May 19th and 20th -- get tickets now!

Whether you can experience a Maker Faire in person or not, you can certainly take inspiration from the boundless enthusiasm and creative risk-taking of everyone who participates -- and don't forget to be a maker yourself. Here are some videos to inspire you.

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While we here at Edutopia believe firmly in the idea of authentic comprehensive assessment, high-stakes standardized tests are a reality most teachers must deal with. Any educator will tell you that accountability is critical to a good system of teaching and learning, but most teachers I know dread state test time. To give you a break from the stress of the tests, I've pulled together a few videos on the lighter side of testing -- a few protest songs, a few silly parodies, and a few schools that turn test-time into an opportunity to get creative.

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While we all know teachers deserve to be thanked all year long, May is set aside as a special time to show even more gratitude to the educators who motivate, guide, and believe in us. So I'll dive right in by shouting out to all the teachers in the trenches making a difference for kids. I tried to keep the overly-sentimental piano music to a minimum and share some truly inspirational videos. Some of the clips in this playlist might make you laugh, and some might make you cry, but all of them should make you feel like a super-hero -- for the work you do every day is the most important work that anyone can do. Thank you!

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For some people, the thought of poetry makes their blood pump faster with passion, while for others, it conjures up stereotypes of disaffected beat writers. But there's no doubt that when taught well, poetry can get kids excited about reading, writing, performing, and finding their voice. As we near the end of April, National Poetry Month, I've put together a selection of videos about the power of poetry for young people -- in the classroom and beyond.

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Earth Day has deep roots in education. The first one was in 1970, held as a "national teach-in on the environment." It was groundbreaking in that it brought together people with different beliefs and backgrounds to fight for a single cause. We celebrate on April 22nd, but you can teach your students about sustainability and environmental stewardship all year round. It doesn't take much for kids to feel like they can make a difference for our planet, mobilizing them to be life-long environmentalists! Here's a playlist of videos to get you started.

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No matter what your political leanings are, most people get a little stressed during tax season, and teachers are no exception. Since April 15th is tax day in the U.S., I've put together a collection of fun short videos -- a few to learn about income tax, but mostly to indulge in some much-needed tax time humor.

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Spring has sprung, and it's time to start thinking about getting outside and planting green things! School gardens are a great way to teach kids hands-on science. Whether you have a full garden where the kids produce their own cafeteria food, or you're just getting started and egg-crate seedlings are more your pace, you can pull valuable lessons in ecology, sustainability, healthy food habits, and teamwork out of the dirt.

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April Fools Day has a long and illustrious history of pranks both large and small -- so much so that sometimes real news stories published on April 1st get written off as fake. For teachers and students, it can be a chance to blow off some steam. There's no denying that sometimes it can go too far -- which probably makes more than a few educators glad when it falls on a weekend!

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This week's announcement of a new initiative called TED-Ed caused a flurry of excitement about the new videos TED is creating to spread powerful lessons beyond the classroom walls. It's not just a new home for education-related TED videos; it's a call to action -- anyone can nominate an outstanding teacher or suggest a fantastic lesson, and the TED team will work with the educators chosen to record and then animate those lessons. You can already see the first few of these gems on the TED-Ed YouTube Channel.

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