What is Mystery Doug?
MysteryDoug.com is a website that provides video responses to the scientific questions that students have submitted. The website offers some content for free and some of their videos are also available on YouTube. Mystery Doug is part of a larger program called Mystery Science that can be purchased for use a school sites.
Teachers may use videos to introduce new concepts or guide students in formulating questions about topics they might wish to investigate further for solutions. For instance, there are instructions on how to share just certain portions of movies with students and assign courses to those who do not have access to the internet.
The Pros:
Mystery Doug’s videos are short, highly informative, entertaining, useful for classroom instruction. I would highly recommend that anyone planning out Science lessons look to see if there is a relevant Mystery Doug video to go with their lesson.
The students in my 2nd grade class often have a good time watching the films, giving their answers to the questions, and casting their votes for which video they think Mystery Doug should add to the site next.
Students get excited about voting on themes for which the voting window had already closed. The voting system is brilliant and entertaining, although it has a few flaws.
The Cons:
If they see this post, I want to point out a few areas in which they may improve.
- They should classify the films found on the website under various umbrella headings to make them simpler to locate.
- They should add tags to the videos with the Science Standard they cover.
- Users should be able to search for videos based on the Science Standard they are teaching.
- Students would enjoy having a form on the website where they could suggest video topics and rank suggestions higher or lower, with the highest recommendation being a video that is more likely to be added.
