Sharing My PLN: YouTube Tools for Schools

Three very helpful web applications are described and demonstrated here by Adam Bellows, @edutecher. Teachers could benefit by using these applications to remove distractions when using YouTube videos.

Winsome Wednesday: Moo Cards for YouTube Producers

Moo, an online printing service, is partnering with YouTube to help you get the word out about your videos. You can get a pack of 50 free cards. You can also have more than one image in your card set that come in your pack.

This is a wonderful idea. Moo helps you get the word out, and you also invite people to YouTube who may not know about your work.

Yes, believe it or not, there are people out in the World of Matter who don't know about YouTube. Don't you think they need to know?

Winsome Wednesday: Share with SynchTube

mirrors06.jpg by joshstaiger
Attribution License

What is Synchtube? A beta web application that can be used to create a synchronous, virtual group that can view and interact about the same YouTube video.

It's a way for a group of people to synchronize the way they view YouTube videos. Invite a group to watch a YouTube video at the same time. It's an opportunity to discuss, enjoy and elaborate on any video available on YouTube.

Will you try it? What do you think of SynchTube?

I think it could be used for many professional development opportunities, as well as class discussions and projects. The beta project has a bright future. Just use it.

clipped from www.synchtube.com

synchtube is the only place to watch YouTube videos with friends in real-time!

Simply paste a YouTube link and create a room. You can share this room with others, and watch videos in real-time... well enough talking, just try it already!

YouTube, Copyright and Lucacept

Are you developing lessons on Acceptable Use Practices, copyright issues, or Creative Commons? Then you may be interested in my discussion of this topic, as well as a wonderful blog posting by Jenny Luca at lucacept with her questions about the trends in copyright, education, students, the internet and teachers, YouTube and Copyright: the dilemma for educators.

Jenny ends her posting with these thoughtful questions.

I’m wondering about the future of copyright and what may happen now that user generated content is really taking off. Will we see a backlash against copyright regulations? Will we see users post their content and stipulate that it can be used and reformatted so that educators can employ it in classrooms to convey important messages? Will more people use creative commons licences to allow their work to be used easily in educational settings? Will the copyright council be able to stem the flow of infringements to the law as more and more educators realise the potential benefits of YouTube to provide useful content for classroom instruction?

This is my response, and I am responsible for my opinions and statements on this topic. Thanks go to those who prompted me to think of these topics, but they are in no way responsible for any of my opinions or statements here.

Your insightful lessons using YouTube must encourage students to upload their work [there], and this is a wonderful extension of this popular media venue into their educational life.

Thanks for the tip on downloading before the lesson. That would help prevent ruined lessons from technical malfunctions.

Hopefully, Creative Commons Copyright will become more prevalent. I use the Share-alike Copyright, in my work, and I encourage others to consider it. Even though some dispute it, teachers have permission to use work under American copyright for educational purposes.

I follow Lawrence Lessig's lessons and stories(Free Culture) on what happened when business became more important that expression.

I am all for making money, yet I agree with those who believe that family or corporate empires don't need to be maintained from one person's or group's work. For example, our new copyright laws directly favored Sonny Bono's widow (who replaced him in the US Congress, after his untimely death while on a SKI TRIP).

I am not sure why the work of Sonny Bono is more important than the work of John Phillip Sousa, but hey you never know.

Lawrence Lessig,[Stanford law professor] gives an excellent Ted speech about John Phillip Sousa's active disagreement with long copyrights. Sousa believed that we would have a more creative, richer world if people were allowed to have access to copyrighted work after a much shorter time than we have now. I agree.

Thanks for discussing this important topic.