Using Video From the Internet
Posted by Eric C. on November 28, 2007 in Foreign Languages, Instructional Strategies, Language Arts, Math, Music, Science, Social Studies, The Arts
More and more teachers are looking to the Internet as a source for videos to use in their classrooms. But before getting carried away there are a couple of major considerations to think about. First, is access to the videos you want blocked? Second, is your school’s Internet connection robust enough to handle watching video?
Access to Video
Schools must comply with federal CIPA rules in order to keep students safe and get network infrastructure funding. For almost all school districts this has meant Internet filters. As video content has exploded on the Internet so have the restrictions for student access which often means that student access to video sharing sites like YouTube are blocked. You have two options to solve this problem.
- Use sites that are not blocked like TeacherTube.
- Transfer YouTube or other video from computers that have access to the site, teacher workstations for example, onto presentation stations so they can be shared with students. (full directions here)
Bandwidth Issues
The District’s access to the Internet is limited by the amount of service we buy from the Washington State k-20 Network. Schools are further limited by the network infrastructure that connects them to the network operations center at the JSCEE. Schools connected by fiber have better bandwidth than schools that are not. Within the next 3 years we should have almost all school sites connected by fiber, but until then many elementary sites that are not connected will have less access. Keeping all this in mind, it is important to treat Internet access as a scarce resource. Your options:
- Download video in off peak usage times and then show during class. A great way to do this is to use video podcasts. see Podcasts for the Classroom
- Use streaming video if you have a fiber connection, but be aware of possible network slowdowns if several classrooms are using Internet intensive applications at the same time. (You may also want to check with your librarian to make sure that their book checkout times are not severely effected). Links to great video sites for education.
January 4th, 2008 at 6:56 am
It’s good to see someone bringing some forethought to this idea. I’ve seen folks get excited about it and implement it without much planning. It never ends well. I also didn’t know about the teacher tube link. thanks for that – going to pass that along to my teacher friends.
February 12th, 2008 at 5:39 pm
We think this is a great resource. We hope to begin using teacher tube and some of the other resources as a way to enrich our teaching!
March 4th, 2009 at 3:41 pm
I know at our school there is 1 unfiltered computer in the library with teacher access only. Since youtube is blocked at our school, this is where teachers can download movies that they want to show in class. Once downloaded, you can save it to your own personal file and then access it later in your own classroom. Although it is not the ideal situation, it helps “police the internet” while also allowing teachers to show valuable movie clips that can facilitate learning. If youtube is blocked at your school, maybe this is an option?