Friday, August 7, 2009

Thing 20, YouTube and TeacherTube

I understand the concern of administration about inappropriate content in YouTube but the good far outweighs the bad. The embedded videos throughout the L2P site have been so helpful when exploring a new topic. I tried out a couple of Web 2.0 tools in Thing 19 that turned out to be very frustrating because the only Help was in the form of FAQs. I did not think to search YouTube to see if someone had posted a tutorial.

Ta-Dah! Here it is, a tutorial on Platial. When all else fails consult YouTube! If the Tech people in our district are given enough notification YouTube can be unblocked for a period of time. It is available just not at the spur of the moment.

A colleague has started a group called Book Trailers For All on TeacherTube for the purpose of uploading and sharing book trailers. A great resource for librarians to feature on their blogs or for booktalks during library classes to get students reading.

It is very beneficial to all teachers to have this wealth of streaming video "at their fingertips". Someone may have posted a video that explains a topic in such a way that more students are able to grasp a new concept. Our students grew up in a visual environment, the short snippets of information presented in the videos are a great format for teachers to utilize in their classrooms.

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