My First Ever YouTube Video Upload!

I borrowed this video from one of my husband's collection of work related videos. He has quite a few exciting stunt shots...enjoy! He would have loved to be this guy.

WOW…this was easier than I thought! Just uploaded my first video to YouTube without pulling out any hair and YouTube just sent me a Congratulations e-mail too.

Now I am thinking that I should create my own private sharing account so that I can share recent family videos with family and friends. YouTube is quite easy to navigate and I found useful tools easily with short, uncomplicated instructions that give you the option to use the tool more in depth when you click ‘learn more.’

My Own Personal Learning:

I learned how to create your own channel, which I will explore further because at this point I have only one video upload. This option allows you to compile all of your videos and create a personal channel, you can choose categories for your channels and as a user you can find specific topics when searching through the various channels that others have created. You can subscribe to particular channels of interest and YouTube will send you all of their recent activity. I subscribed to NYSSBA0IT's Channel that is put together by the New York School Board. Here is a link to one of the videos that I watched:

I learned how to embed videos to my blog and I created a JPEG image to link the video. I also linked my YouTube video uploads to my Twitter homepage to share my recent videos there. You can also link to a variety of other social networks like: orkut, Myspace, Face Book, StumbleUpon, Digg, reddit and tumblr. I also created my own playlist where you can organize and compile all of the videos you have watched and would like to watch again or share with others. You can create a favorites page with all of your choice videos as well. You can purchase, download and watch movies, I wonder what the copyright regulations would be on this and if you could watch them at school? You can also add captions or subtitles to your videos, which I thought is quite useful. Another feature is to add music to your video for free and the ‘insight’ option allows you to study the demographics of the viewers who are watching your videos, quite useful if you want to try to target a particular audience.

Teaching and Learning:

The implications on teaching would be beneficial due to the visual possibilities available to you, your students and their teachers. For research alone YouTube serves as a great visual guide to any kind of video you would like to watch from educational videos that teach the alphabet to medical research. YouTube can be viewed or it can also be used to view your own creations offering so many possibilities for classroom and library use.

When thinking about safety and security within the school environment YouTube allows teachers to create their own private sharing accounts where only invited students and teachers may watch videos that are created. You can also choose whether you want your videos to be public or private.

There are numerous ways in which to incorporate YouTube in an educational setting, these are some of the ideas I brainstormed:

· For primary use teachers can access a variety of videos to share on the white board to promote early literacy and learning. Some examples include: alphabet learning, shapes, colours, counting, language learning (great visuals for ESL learners), animal videos, songs, music and art.

· YouTube provides an exhaustive and extensive library of visuals for any research project and with a quick instruction lesson students would be able to find what they are looking for quite easily.

Again it is not difficult to discover inappropriate material and language at times so hopefully the school blocker is one that filters well without putting too many limits on searches.

· Students can create their own short films for projects and post them on YouTube to share with the class

· Also YouTube could be an alternative to in class presentations. Students could video tape their own presentation and show them in front of the class instead of having a live presentation. This could allow the students to perfect their presentations and many may feel more comfortable with this kind of option. They could record research presentations, book talks, debates, etc…

· Students could also create their own music videos for projects in language arts or music class.

These are just a few ideas and with a little research on video sharing sites I am sure you will find many concepts to inspire and engage student learning.