EPLORING THE VIDEOSHARING JUNGLE!

Reflection on the Process of Learning about the Tool

This week I have been navigating the video sharing jungle. It was a daunting task for me, but before long, I crawled from the undergrowth and was swinging through the trees with the greatest of ease.

Previously, my only knowledge of videosharing came from my daughter who often showed me funny videos or videos she and her friends have made and posted onto YouTube. In fact, prior to this exploration, I was not aware that there were other video sharing sites out there.

Imagine being dropped out of a plane and into the jungle. Your mission is to navigate your way out of the jungle, but you have no map or compass. How do you begin? Well, that is exactly how I felt as I began to learn about video sharing. So, I found the path that most closely resembled a trail and began to hack my way through it. I started on YouTube because that is what I had at least seen before. I began by just exploring videos and returning to a couple that I had seen before. One particular video, "Charlie bit my finger" always makes me laugh. The boy's accent and the facial expressions of both boys are priceless. I knew I had to learn to embed a video, and I thought I would practice with that particular video. Well, little did I know just how simple it would be. If you can cut and paste, you can embed video. To begin with, I did not know that, so I searched "How to embed a YouTube video into a blog," and up came a list with a number of videos on this exact topic. I chose the first on the list "Embedding YouTube Videos" and in 1 minute and 17 seconds, I knew what to do. Below is my first embedding venture which I left here in case you need a smile.



From there, I went on to read about YouTube and school libraries in the School Library Journal online site and came across a post from Cheryl LaGuardia who listed 12 of her favourite videos about libraries. I watched all 12, but have embedded 2 here that I found quite hilarious.

Conan - I definitely will add this to my library site! My students are sure to get a kick out of it!





The Librarian Song - Hopefully this won't offend anybody. Frankly, it tickled my funny bone.

I could have gone on embedding forever. It's so easy, and there's so much to share!

YouTube is an easy site to use. There's a search bar at the top where you can type in keywords or topics and find a list of hits. As well, from the home page, there are tabs for Videos and Channels where you can find categories to search within. At the bottom of the home page, there are links for help, the blog, contact information, copyright information and much more. Anybody can use this site.

From YouTube I went on to Teacher Tube. This site is specifically designed for teachers and students. There are many videos to teach teachers and many which show student work. This site also has a search feature which can be further defined with a choice to search all media or specify videos, photos, audio, etc. Yes, TeacherTube has access to videos, audio, photos, blogs and documents. The handiest feature for teachers, in my opinion, is the channels tab as here the videos are broken down into subject areas. I did some random checking in areas I was interested in such as Health, and I found there to be few videos, so I guess we had better get busy and start contributing too!

In my reading, I came across a post from Joyce Valenza entitled Flickr Video is Here. In this blog, Joyce explains the main difference between Flickr's video sharing options and YouTube's. "Flickr is not looking to host lengthy video or to repost copyrighted or commercial materials." As well, Flickr only posts videos that have been crated by the individuals posting them and videos that do not contain questionable content. Flickr has other rules about uploading videos. For example, videos can only be 90 seconds in length, maximum. The service is free, but users are limited to uploading two videos per month. There are other guidelines for use to check out under Flickr: Help: Video.

Wikipedia lists 36 current video sharing sites (some are only in foreign languages) that are open to the public. Each site has different guidelines for use. I went on to Blinkx and Photobucket.

Blinkx: The opening page on Blinkx is very slick. There's a board to the left, like a checker board, with snapshots of different videos in each. Moving the cursor over the box gives the viewer a bit of information on the topic. There are tabs across the top for categories and another box on the left with categories as well. Blinkx appears to be more of a search engine for all video sharing sites. For example, I searched the term "laughing baby" because I know it's a funny video on YouTube. What I got for hits was a list of videos fitting that search from YouTube, Google, ITN, and Megavideo. The site boasts over 35 million hours of video. You can watch full length tv shows, upload videos, embed videos, just as you can on YouTube. I did note that when I went into categories such as education, the range of videos was more "How to..." or videos of people lecturing. I didn't see, as readily, the individual or student produced types of videos one would find on YouTube.

Trying to research how Blinkx differed from YouTube, I learned was that Blinkx will allow you to search for videos from sites like Google Video and YouTube and embed them where you desire. Recently, they added an ad widget, it will search for ads that fit with your content., According to an online article, "'We're video site agnostic,' Blinkx CEO Suranga Chandratillake told InternetNews.com," meaning they will search video from all over. This is more of a money maker issue than an issue for everyday users like me.

Photobucket looks a lot like Flickr when you first get on to its Home page. The site offers a lot of cool features like group photo albums, organizers, scrapbook builders and slideshow builders. There are categories along the left-hand side to help you find your video as well as tags and a search space, but the rest of the page is snapshots of different popular videos. In contrast to Blinkx, Photobucket looked like more of a place for amateurs to post videos.

Video Sharing and My Personal Learning

Video sharing felt like a jungle, full of lions and tigers and bears (oh, my!), and I was afraid to tackle it. I found YouTube to be very user friendly, and I found working my way around Photobucket and Flickr was relatively easy. I did not care for Blinkx, and I think I would use that primarily for a search if I could not find what I wanted on YouTube or TeacherTube which would be my first choices. So, yeah, I felt like I could swing fairly easily through the jungle of video sharing by the time I was done. The one thing I did not actually do myself was to upload a video onto the site, but my daughter walked me through the process on her computer, and it is surprisingly simple.

In my reading, I enjoyed the discussion by Davies and Merchant in Web 2.0 for Schools: Learning and Social Participation about the pros and cons of YouTube. They noted that they found inappropriate content early on in their survey of YouTube and recommended that "...all teachers ...negotiate their own paths around YouTube before using with classes and that they embed videos from YouTube into blog spaces created to serve material to younger students (p 54). This is good advice, and to me it would be a given. I did learn that there are tools such as QuietTube where all the background and distractions can be eliminated. YouTube is clear in stating that it has policies and guidelines, but as Davies and Merchant state, "YouTube is keen to explain what it will not tolerate but is clear that it is 'community' members who need to say what is appropriate and what is not" (p 56). They offer a complaint form for people to fill out when they feel something is inappropriate and then they will investigate it; however, they do not preview everything before it comes up on the site. And, I can't say I blame them, for as Will Richardson states in his book Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms published in 2009, that at the time he wrote the book "...over 85,000 videos are being uploaded to YouTube every day, and well over 100 million are being watched (http://tinyurl.com/219mj9)" (p 119). Keeping up to this would be an impossible task!

I have actually come to view video sharing in a whole new light. In a series of discussions with teens from the UK, Davies and Merchant found that most of the videos they watched were referrals that came through some other tool such as Facebook, MySpace or instant messaging. Students were not scouring the web to find the video themselves, but rather going on the recommendations of friends (p 59). With the technology, a video can become popular almost instanteously through the use of the various tools. According to Davies and Merchant, young people do not communicate so much on a site like YouTube, but they communicate a lot about what they are watching on other sites such as Facebook (p 59). The authors thus conclude that students "...prefer videos on YouTube to programmes and films on television [which] suggests that their viewing is not passive; they are interested in being interactive around the texts they consume (p 59). How often have I heard teachers lament that kids have no interest in learning, that they do not want to think, or that they are too lazy to think and learn? The information from Davies and Merchant suggests otherwise. It suggests that in order for them to learn, they need to find it meaningful, and they need to discuss and debate and share. I have long believed that we under utilize talk in our classrooms. We need to do more and provide opportunities for students to share it with their peers, those who mean the most to them. Video sharing provides another opportunity to do just that.

Personally, my use of a site like YouTube will probably remain limited to looking at entertaining videos or looking for information like how to repair a leaky faucet. I do not anticipate that I will begin uploading my own videos, but I am glad to know how to embed them because I anticipate I will do a lot of that, but again, professionally, as that is where I see YouTube as being of the most value to me.

Video Sharing and Teaching and Learning

The path to video sharing for professional use is more like a paid for safari tour with a guide and a jeep. Lots of people are doing this with outstanding results. Sites like TeacherTube and SchoolTube are becoming popular. On the LM_NET Listserve I belong to, I often receive posts of new videos added to TeacherTube. I think the possibilities for things you can do with video sharing in schools is endless, although you must also remember safety issues in terms of identifying students and places.

I know that our school division blocked YouTube at the start of last school year. However, a number of teachers used it for teaching purposes (in our school, primarily showing videos from the site), so they unblocked it for staff. Students, who I'm sure did not read Joyce Valenza's post "When YouTube is blocked (way more than eight ways around) which offers more ethical options for getting around this issue, do manage to find ways to get in through the "back door." I would like to say that when they do this, they are accessing video to help them in their learning, but from what I have seen, that does not appear to be the case. So, that gives me the idea that perhaps students need to be taught to see YouTube as an academic resource.

As well, I agree with Davies and Merchant when they say that kids are going to come across inappropriate material maybe at school and most likely at home, and perhaps we should spend time teaching them how to deconstruct it and deal with these ideas (p 57). They suggest, "Beginning with instances of now dated 'retro' popular culture such as these cartoons, rather than with the more aggressive posturing instances of racism elsewhere, [so that] pupils can look at racism with more of a distanced perspective than when discussing materials that is more contemporary" (p 57). What a great lesson.

We often discuss authentic purpose for student work. Video sharing sites such as YouTube offer a wealth of authenticity as well as great opportunity for teaching about purpose and audience and voice. We all want an occasion to feel proud of what we do and recieve praise, students who create legitimate videos for learning and upload them to share would feel great pride.

Davies and Merchant "...feel that by far the greatest benefits could be gained by involving students in searching YouTube for material to evaluate, as well as in producing video for others, or in producing explanatory videos of their own" (p 64). This set my mind reeling to many ways I could increase student engagement, particularly in my Health class which even bores me to tears. As well, the wide array of other skills that students would learn in conjunction with learning to use a tool like this would be so beneficial for them. For example, not only would they learn about lighting, voice, filming techniques but also about writing, audience, purpose, voice, critical thinking and online safety. And although my Health students are only in Grade 7, as they progress through the grades, they will have other opportunities to continue to hone these skills.

As jungles go, this one was perhaps in a protected national park. It was challenging in places, and energizing. But the wild animals were well fed and not looking to rip me to pieces. Consequently, I enjoyed this adventure, and I am excited about the possibilities that have been opened up to me.