Look, there are only ever two key questions from teachers when talking about Youtube. The first is ‘why is it blocked in school?’ Good question, but then again some many educational tools are blocked by the educational establishment; Google Image search, Ning to name a few. In fact I think it was Alan November that stated that the of the five top reasons for students to use the internet (IM, Downloading music, Video Games, Social Networks and Youtube) all five are blocked in most schools. That would be the case for the schools I have taught in. So why is it blocked…. safety. (There are alternatives, check out teachertube.)
For me it is the ‘scissors’ argument. Do you hide the scissors away from the children, of course you don’t, you show them how to use them safely…. perhaps this is not the forum for banging this drum.
So to the second question, ‘how do I get THAT Youtube video?’ or shall we be more generic and say all FLV videos from popular online websites? Its often a two stage process, getting the video and then converting it to a Windows friendly file type. Here is my new answer for 2009, thanks to another RSS posting.
YouTube FLV Downloader from Moyea, (along with a range of other products, some free and some not). A simple way to download, store, manage and convert your FLV videos from all video sharing sites so YouTube, Yahoo, Google, MySpace, iFilm, Dailymotion, Metacafe. There are even some simple tutorials on how to use it. So that’s the second question, I fear the first question will be long standing.
Hi Kristian,
Great post. I’m CEO of a new company called Kadoo.
I was a very early employee at Blackboard. And we’ve put together something i think you might find interesting as its designed to provide the power of all the best web2.0 applications from 1 place. But we believe the user should always be in control of how and how much they share online.
Kadoo gives every user 10 FREE Gigs to store, manage and share all their content from just 1 place. All yours and your students Files, Photos, Streaming & original Videos, Bookmarks, a mash up tool called Stories that can be used as an ePortfolio for life.
It also includes a full web2.0 Portal, Email system, and the ability to manage all your Social Networks.
We designed Kadoo to integrate seamlessly with Blackboard and are actively working to integrate it with other LMS’s — that said you don’t need an LMS to use Kadoo.
You can sign up today for free at http://www.kadoo.com
Please do provide comments and feedback as we’ve been building Kadoo for 2.5 years but only just launched in September of this year.
Sincerely,
Chris
CEO
Kadoo Inc.
Kadoo looks very ‘current.’ The modular appearance is appealing. Kadoo could be a very useful tool for teachers who don’t have access to a VLE/LMS.