Video Sharing Sites

I think there is a high potential for student learning when they watch short video clips during class as well as at home. These videos can help students' minds "shift gears" during class as well as engaging them at home; when they click on a link they are saying "I am ready to learn"- this is powerful because it is on their own time. Here are my ideas about the websites I reviewed.

Next Vista for Learning This site has good potential for student learning. I love the fact that it is not for profit so there are no ads to distract learning as well as not risking the questionable sites and content. The problem that I have right now with Next Vista is that it is low in content as far as my classroom content need goes. I realize that it will grow in time but right now it doesn't have the amount of materials that I need.

Teachertube I like this site a lot. Again, no ads are great and it seems to have a higher quality feed than Next Vista. I like that anyone can upload a video and this will allow student projects or "at home" experiments to be displayed. Curious kids often do really cool stuff at home. I believe these kids should be allowed to share their experiments with other people around the world on a distinguished site like Teachertube.

YouTube The mother of all video sharing sites! Good things about YouTube are that there is tons of good content already on the site and every kids has been to YouTube at some point in their lives. Many kids go there to relax so that if students are already in front of their computers at home and are asked to click on a link and view a video for homework it will be in a format that they like and is easy to access. The negative aspect of YouTube is that there are many topics and advertisements that are not appropriate to display (even in the sidebar) in class or possibly subject kids to at home; you never know what banner ad will be up when the kids clicks on the link from home.

Clip Blast This is a site I have never heard of before today. That said, I will definitely be back in the future. The idea that it is an "all in one" site that searches the internet from video clips from any website is great. Of course, this opens the door for objectionable content and possibly being blocked for students while at school. I do like the neat, professional look to the site as well as the ad free view will watching videos. I didn't like that I couldn't pause the video that I watched from YouTube through Clip Blast. Overall, I feel that this is a very useful site that I have bookmarked to use later.

As far as educational content and relevance, ease of use, and possibilities for my classes goes I have to rank Clip Blast first followed closely by YouTube. They have the most content that applies directly to my contents and I will continue to use them in class. As I said above, students may view content that is not school appropriate and they may not be able to access these sites from a school computer.

Whether we like it or not, online videos are here and kids are watching them. I think that harnessing the student interest in these videos can help us out when they view school content in the comfort of their own homes. How cool would it be if an Earth science video went "viral"?