Thing+Seventeen


 * Thing Seventeen**

Teachers have been using video to supplement classroom instruction for decades. Online video sharing is big business, and it makes classroom video use cheaper, more convenient, and more customized, as long as you can find quality content amidst the junk. Like other Web 2.0 tools, video sharing sites enable users (for better or worse) to easily publish content to the web. YouTube, the most popular video sharing site on the web, currently garners about 20 - 30 million visitors a day, just from the US.
 * **Introduction**

As you explore YouTube and its educator-friendly companion, TeacherTube, you will encounter many familiar Web 2.0 features, such as RSS feeds, user comments/ratings, groups, and, of course, tags. Like many resource-rich websites, much of the content on YouTube is not school appropriate. The comments are unfiltered, so even a perfectly benign and educational video can have reams of inane text posted below it. But there is also a vast wealth of "good" stuff there as well, so it's definitely worth a look. (Plus, now that you know how to EMBED, you can present JUST the video content you choose to students, without visiting the YouTube site directly!)

And, yes, copyright questions abound. For those who may be interested, here's a four minute video detailing the **History of YouTube**.....(You may need to watch from home if YouTube is blocked at your school).

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**Discovery Exercise**

**PART 1: YouTube Scavenger Hunt**

If YouTube is blocked at your school, you will probably need to do this at home. To bring YouTube content to your classroom, you can use the free Zamzar service to download and convert a video for offline use. ( Zamzar Quick Reference )


 * Have a little look around YouTube.** You may want to set a timer, or you'll be posting angry blogs about losing hours of your life. **Try tagging your video discoveries to your delicious account for easy reference!!**

Your challenge is to **find four videos**:


 *  Find **two videos** that relate to your teaching content and/or professional learning interests.


 *  Find **one video** that teaches you "how to" do something. (Will Richardson recently told us that you can find out how to do anything technological by searching YouTube!)


 *  Find **one video** that's just fun, nostalgic or interesting to you.

**Search tips:**
 *  Enter one or more keywords into the YouTube search tool to find videos having those terms in their titles, tags and descriptions.


 *  Check out your results and preview some videos. Also check out related videos.


 *  Click "more" next to a video description to view its tags. Click a tag to see more videos tagged as such.


 *  Try the advanced search tool to narrow your search results.


 *  Set "safe" search to filter out "adult" content:



**PART 2:** **Explore TeacherTube** (YouTube "alternative" for Education)

TeacherTube, launched in March 2007, aims to provide a "more educationally focused, safe venue for teachers, schools, and home learners" to share instructional videos and student media projects. TeacherTube currently offers free __unlimited__ uploading of educational video. TeacherTube relies on its user community to keep the site student-safe by flagging inappropriate content. (I love TeacherTube, but most of the time it is dreadfully SLOW and there is a lot of advertising!)


 * Check out TeacherTube with an eye for PRODUCING content**. Possibly the most powerful potential for video sharing to support teaching and learning is to contribute original content. What types of projects might you or your students contribute to TeacherTube?

**Additional Resources** * Educause: 7 things you should know about YouTube


 *  Education World: Using YouTube in the Classroom


 *  Spiral Notebook Blog: A Teacher's Tour of YouTube

** Learning Tasks **

**Task: Blog Post - YouTube and TeacherTube** Write a blog post sharing your YouTube and TeacherTube findings. Tell about the videos you discovered and share ideas you have for producing video to support classroom or professional learning. Embed one of your discovered YouTube or TeacherTube videos in your blog. (Feel free to embed a video into your wiki page as well if you want to experiment). ** To Embed a TeacherTube Video into Edublogs, WordPress Blog or Wikispaces: **

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