A Problem Solved!
One of my colleagues was disappointed that the utube videos she had selected to show staff could not be shown at school. Once again Jenny Luca gave me the solution, she said visit my blog and read the post Kickyoutube. Yes, there is a solution so please read this extract from Jenny’s post.
Extract: Jenny Luca – Lucacept
‘One of the best ways to start converting colleagues to the wonders of the Web is to introduce them to the vast array of content on YouTube that is suitable for education purposes. If you work in a school with a slow connection then you will be familiar with the circular loading indicator that can stay like that for what seems an eternity. Not conducive to good classroom practice unfortunately. By the time it loads your kids are in their next class!
Solution. Download the video from YouTube using a conversion tool. I’ve spoken of keepvid before which has been my preferred option. This has involved me going to the keepvid site and copying and pasting the YouTube url once I’m there.
Better solution. Alec Couras, ably assisted by Melanie Gibb, alerted me on Twitter to kickyoutube. It is quite simply the easiest method I’ve seen yet to download a video to a different format. All you need to do is delete the ‘au.’ (or www.) in the url and type the word ‘kick’ in front of the word ‘youtube’ and then press enter. Kickyoutube is enabled and you are presented with a toolbar with differing options for file conversion. You select your preferred option and press go and your download begins. Dead simple. There are even options for conversions for the iPhone and PSP as well as the garden variety options. Some options may not be available at the time and they will not be highlighted if that is the case.
Richard Byrne, who writes at Free Technology for Teachers, (and just quietly Richard, you are a blogging dynamo! Do you ever sleep?) has posted recently about YouTube’s new initiative with downloads. Here’s what he reported;
YouTube is introducing a download option on some videos. I haven’t seen any official announcements from YouTube, but there are some videos on YouTube that now have a small download link located just below play menu.
This is an even easier option, but like Richard says, it’s not available for all videos at the moment. All you need to do is click on the download link and a file download to MPEG 4 format begins.
It will be nice to return to school with some new and very easy options for downloads from YouTube to share with my colleagues. We may not even need to do this with some changes that are afoot. We are moving from a 2mg internet connection to 20mg and I can’t wait to see what a difference that is going to make for our school and our connectivity. I’m expecting great things! ‘
What is TeacherTube?
I also found out about Teachertube. I’ve joined today and what a fantastic resource it is … and free. So take a look- great videos and resources for all age students.
Cheers Nina
Nina Davis: Teaching & Learning in Australia 