Meeting Learners Where They Are

Live from NECC 2007...

I'm in the TeacherTube booth in the exhibit hall of the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta. This place is HUGE! So many exhibitors...how can one get through it all in just a few days? The place is filled with the sounds of forklifts driving around (and beeping when in reverse) and tools building elaborate exhibits. Tomorrow the hall will be filled with excited attendees looking at the latest and greatest in educational technology offerings.

At NECC, TeacherTube is announcing the launch of TeacherTube Onsite, a way for school systems to meet students where they are -- which is in the digital, read/write, web 2.0 environment. Follow the link for more details about TeacherTube Onsite.

If you haven't seen the When I Grow Up.... video posted by mjohnson, please check it by following the link or watch below. It really supports the same message TeacherTube is promoting. Member Dragon09 conveys the message with this comment to the video:

Posted by: Dragon09 : Videos(2) Favorites(0) Friends(3) (23 days ago)
This is another example of the power of Web 2.0 to fuel the ongoing debate as to why we, as educators need to step up to the plate, take our kids futures in OUR hands and help them prepare for in as best we are able. Thx

Advertising on TeacherTube's Site

Members of the TeacherTube community have no doubt seen some advertising on the site. This helps keep this site for educators free of charge. TeacherTube is committed to keeping the advertising on the site to a minimum and keeping ads relevant to the education community. Those interested in advertising on the site can request information by completing the form on the Advertise page of the site.

Laptop Winner & Upload Fixes

I'm pleased to announce the April TeacherTube Laptop Contest winner for April is member marcbarcelona! The May contest is in full swing, so sign up today! If you are a member already, then increase your chances by uploading videos and using the invite friends feature!

Some of you have notified us that it's hard to tell when a videos is actually uploading. I know...I couldn't tell either and recently realized my last video was up there three times. When I thought the site had timed out, I just started uploading again but the video had actually uploaded and I didn't know it. Oops! So to help us out, Adam has added an "uploading" notification icon and page and a page notifying of successful uploading. Please let us know if this helps or not.

Shaking it Up at Mulholland Middle School

TeacherTube welcomes new members from the San Antonio-Austin Area Geographic Educators (SAGE). We look forward to seeing your instructional videos in the community and want to hear how you are using TeacherTube videos in your classrooms.

Speaking of how members are using TeacherTube in the classroom, we were super-excited to see this documented in Bob Sipchen’s April 16th LA Times column School Me—Adventures in Education. In his article “If wired right, computers do belong in the classroom,” he describes integration of technology for teaching and learning going on in a classroom at Mulholland Middle School in Van Nuys:

When a good teacher and good technology get together, watch out.

Hillary Zana's sixth-grade social studies class seems like a case study. Her students had just watched an online video clip from teachertube.com about education in the age of globalization, and they were answering questions — online, for all to see and discuss — about technology's role in classrooms.

What Sipchen observed was students visiting Mrs. Zana's Class--A Place to Read and Write
Together to watch the Shake it Up video (posted to TeacherTube by bionicteaching) and then posting responses to open ended questions. Ms. Zana continued to question students’ posts,
stretching their thinking. The class ended up with a total of 43 posts for this discussion over 3 days! I wonder if they--students and teacher--would have written this much and put this much thought into the assignment if it was on paper. But the best part of such an activity is now other students and teachers can see their responses, watch the video, and join the conversation.

Download TeacherTube Videos & Upload Flash Files

Today TeacherTube launched a new feature that allows users to download videos from the site. TeacherTube community members can now save a TeacherTube video to his or her computer and not have to worry about band width issues, connection speed, or buffering. It's important to know that the Terms of Use state: "TeacherTube provides the ability to download videos to your computer for personal or classroom educational use only, provided you give a link back to TeacherTube in any presentation, website, or other form of media in which the downloaded video is included."

The new feature is available just below the Channels designation to the right of the video player. Simply click on the video name and choose Save. The video will be downloaded as a Flash file, which makes the download much faster. If you need to convert the file to another format for playing on your computer, try out one of the easy to use online converters such as Zamzar or Vixy or Media-Converter.

Also, in an effort to make the site more friendly to all educational video creators, today TeacherTube enabled the site to accept uploaded Flash video files.

TeacherTube is currently working on other New Features to help make the site more useful to its community members. Please check the blog frequently as all new features and updates will be announced here.

Comments Feature Updated

TeacherTube community members may have noticed an issue with the video comments feature. At one time each member was limited to just one comment per video. But thanks to Adam, that limitation is now gone! Yea! Members can enter multiple comments for any video now. We hope this will facilitate more two-way communication about the videos--that collegial commentary that helps us learn and improve. And if you don't want your comment posted publicly for all to see under the video, members can click the reply button to reply privately to a specific comment. We continue to encourage community members to give constructive feedback to fellow members via the comments feature and the messaging feature.

TeacherTube Notes

A few TeacherTube items to note:

• The TeacherTube Laptop Contest begins tomorrow, April 1st. Check out the details.
  

• Video upload file size is now unlimited! The Help page advises: "Just remember to set your computer's screen saver and/or sleep mode to 1 hour(recommended) or more. If your video does not properly upload, try to edit your video into two parts: EX: Math Part I - Math Part II."

• In line with its commitment to stay educationally focused, TeacherTube has outlined these two criteria for uploaded videos: 1. address specific learning objectives and/or 2. provide professional development for educators.

• A new channel dedicated to Student Products is now available. Teachers are encouraged to upload videos made by students or videos highlighting student products here. We all want to see what your students are learning!

• When creating an account, please notice these two phrases: " - I certify I am over 18 years old. - I agree to the the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy."