Documentary Resource for the Classroom

Snag Films is website that provides free access to thousands of documentaries and independent films. Some of the films are published by well-known documentary makers and others are first timers. Snag allows for free viewing and sharing of all of their published videos. The videos can be saved to a widget that can be published on your blog, website or wiki.



Snag recently released an additional site called Snag Learning. Here is a snippet from their site:

"SnagLearning features carefully selected films from SnagFilms’ award-winning library of over 1,600 documentaries that are appropriate for students from middle school and up. Our titles cover nearly every classroom subject and many are produced by well-known educational sources, including PBS and National Geographic. The goal of this site is to highlight documentaries that make for engaging educational tools. We will also feature guest teacher bloggers as well as special programming stunts like Q&As with the filmmakers.

Teachers can submit and share their own lesson plans, quizzes and homework ideas with fellow educators. The commenting area on each film page functions as public forum to share and discuss."
Snag Films and Snag Learning are both excellent resources for the classroom. They are great conversation starters. They can also be used to spark a writing assignment or any online discussion forum.  Snag Learning provides a list of guiding discussion questions for each film. As we introduce digital storytelling in the classroom, we can use these documentaries and examples and topic starters.