Sourcing Videos
Making your own video is not that difficult with today's technology, especially if it's exclusively for the web and entirely digital. But there's a lot of work - planning, preparation and creating materials - that goes in to creating a good (i.e. interesting and informative) video. Why do that when there are 1,000's of quality videos out there, many specifically created by educators for teaching. We all know about YouTube and there are a gazillion great videos there. However, there are some issues about accessing YouTube here at school. There are some additional resources worth exploring:
Teacher Tube has been around for a while now, but I still run into teachers who have not heard of it. Teacher Tube provides user generated videos for teachers by teachers. Many of the videos on Teacher Tube have teachers sharing lesson plans in action.
School Tube is a website dedicated to the sharing of videos created by students and teachers. School Tube allows teachers and schools to create their own channels for sharing their students' works. School Tube also provides excellent how-to resources, copyright-friendly media, and lesson plans for using video in the classroom.
Snag Films a good place to watch full length documentaries from producers like National Geographic for free.
Free Technology for Teachers has a long list of other candidates
KB...Connected also has a list of candidates
Downloading a Video
In many cases you may be able to show the video directly from the source website, or direct students to do so as part of an assignment. If so, that is obviously the easiest solution. But this may not always be the case. If not, you can (usually) download the video to your computer. For downloading video from YouTube, you have several options:
Free YouTube Downloader is freeware you install on your computer. Simply provide the downloader with the URL of the video, select the output format desired and voila....you have video.
YouTube Video Downloader is a Chrome extension you install in your chrome browser. The extension creates a download option when you select a video on YouTube to view. After you click the download button you will be asked for the desired output format.
a Tube Catcher is by far the best app for the task. It is freeware that you install on your machine. What's great about a Tube Catcher is that it will download from any site (not just YouTube), can do screencasts, file conversions, and other important video tasks. As an example, here's a video I grabbed from MLB and edited using the YouTube editor.
Video Playback
If you've downloaded a video you'll need a video player to show the video in class. Windows Media Player is OK (already installed on Windows 7 desktops) and the X-Box Video player already installed on your tablet is OK as well. I prefer VLC, the free, open source video player from VideoLAN. Installs easily and plays all types of formats, including DVDs.
If you want to have your students watch the video as part of a homework or outside of class project you several options.
If your video won't display there are a variety of possible causes, but the most likely scenario is that the format of the video data is not compatible with the video player. If you have a choice of formats when downloading, WMV or MP4 are the two best choices, next is Adobe Flash (FLV).
- You can create a YouTube channel, upload your video and provide the students with the URL
(this works for at home assignments) - You can upload the video to your EdLine (or other) website
- You can upload the video to your cloud storage (such as SkyDrive or Google) and then either use embed code to embed the video in a website or provide students with the URL
If your video won't display there are a variety of possible causes, but the most likely scenario is that the format of the video data is not compatible with the video player. If you have a choice of formats when downloading, WMV or MP4 are the two best choices, next is Adobe Flash (FLV).
As with most free software, it isn't truly free. There are various 'add-ons' that the vendor may invite you to try (like ASK.COM tool bar). Read the installation prompts & instructions carefully. Others may require a fee to install the 'ad free' version.
Next Installment
In the next installment on using video I'll talk about several methods to post or provide access to the video; I'll also talk about making simple edits, splicing separate segments together, and how to add/edit the audio. Then we'll talk about making your own videos
Thanks, Mike! I like Snag Films...hadn't heard of that yet. Thanks for the information!
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