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Overview:

 

Heritage Minutes provide an excellent resource for quick videos (originally advertisements) that get to the point quickly. They are free upfront for low quality streaming versions, or can be purchased on DVD for $15, or downloaded for $1.29 each. The beautiful part of heritage minutes are that there are so many of them, and they give a quick glimpse into an important piece of our Canadian heritage. They serve as an excellent introduction to a lesson, and even provide teaching resources and an encyclopedia entry underneath the video to satisfy resultant curiosity. Their greatest strength however is also their greatest weakness, however, as the videos encourage an appriceation for ones own Canadian heritage while at the same time limiting that appriceation to a single minute.

 

Lesson Applications:

 

While heritage minutes, radio minutes and footprints stretch into the several hundreds, I want to focus on the particular video "Joseph Tyrell" as seen below. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This video is one minute long, as are all the other heritage minute videos. It merely shows the circumstance under which Joseph Tyrell found the first fossil in the area, which ultimately led to finding one of the greatest dinosaur deposits in the world. The video itself can be used with proper introduction by describing the events surrounding it. The narrative provided at the bottom may be read out:

By the time young Joseph Burr Tyrrell was sent to survey the Alberta badlands, he had already proven himself to the scientist-explorers of the Canadian Geological Survey, those unheralded heroes who mapped the vast territories of Canada in the last century. In June 1884, 24-year-old Tyrrell and his assistant were paddling their canoe between the steep banks of the Red Deer River. In the layers of ancient rock, the geologist found seams of coal, outcroppings of one of the largest coal deposits in North America. He also discovered something even more amazing. 

 

On the morning of June 9, Tyrrell set off on his usual routine of examining the river banks when a peculiar brown object sticking out from the valley wall caught his attention. He climbed 200 feet up the steep slope and then, with mounting excitement, began to clear away the dirt. With his hands and his geologist's hammer, he gradually uncovered the fossilized skeleton of a dinosaur. Dinosaur remains had been unearthed in Western Canada before, but as Tyrrell explored the Valley, he knew that nothing like this had ever been found - a veritable dinosaur graveyard. One day, after a month of surveying and collecting fossils, Tyrrell looked the ancient past directly in the face.

 

Sixty-nine years later, at the age of ninety-five, he recounted the instant of his most dramatic discovery. "I was climbing up a steep face about 400 feet high. I stuck my head around a point and there was this skull leering at me, sticking right out of the ground. It gave me a fright." Tyrrell had found the first skull of Albertosaurus, close cousin to the fearsome Tyrannosaurus. 

 

The video provides for differentiated instruction as per the theory of multiple intelligence theory—some students will connect more strongly with a video than text or the introduction read out before the video. The video also serves to excite student interest and can provide continued inquiry and follow-up questions. The video helps to meet a difficult outcome to assess, that is, "4.1.1 ­― Appreciate the diversity of elements pertaining to geography, climate, geology and paleontology in Alberta."

 

Strengths:

• The videos, if properly understood, can inspire a strong feeling of pride and appreciation in ones own Candian heritage. 

• Names, places, and dates are often displayed underneath for reference purposes.

• They provide a way for students to see for themselves how people are dressed and act at a certain time in history.

• Links to the Canadian encyclopedia provide more depth for teaching ability.

• Some videos cover topics and events in Candian history that have very little to no alternative multimedia resources..

 

Weaknesses

• One minute is a very short introduction and can sometimes be more confusing than helpful.

• The videos provide no real use beyond introduction or review because of their short nature.

• Videos are only engaging if the students understand what is going on in them and they do not provide higher level thinking.

 

Modifications

• Heritage Minute Videos are most effective as a supplementary resource rather than something to base a lesson upon. 

• Heritage Minutes would have been more effective if there were extended versions of each of the videos (they were originally produced as advertisement vignettes). The extended video production would have been minimal as the costumes, sets, and actors were already brought together.