A Thought Provoking Look into Video Sharing

You’ve seen them. You know, those cutsie little videos that your odd aunt sends to you via email, like the laughing babies:



Or what about the just-plain-weird videos you get from that quirky physicist cousin of yours, like this:



Personally I have always liked “The machine is Us/ing Us” the best. (If you have not already seen this one, then you don’t get online much!)



I also recently received this one called “Did you Know?” via email. I don’t know if the stats in it are accurate, but its still quite thought provoking.

In fact, that was my aspiration when I created my video. Something educational, yet entertaining, something thought provoking, yet amusing. I do believe I have achieved this with “Lynon and Agador Discover Diffusion”

Here is my amazing video:



I admit I was stumped at first, like all good artists are at one time or another. How do I create an applicable video that’s amusing but doesn’t require a lot of extra props (I didn’t really have a budget!)? The answer came to me while I stared at the rec-room that once belonged to the adult domain, but has since been taken over by an army of tiny girl toys. “Use the toys, Christine!” I thought. Any of my students who see this video, will no doubt know it as my handy work. My sense of humour is well known throughout our school building!

Once I started, and had decided on a format for the video (i.e. the silent movie) I found it incredibly easy. I searched for Creative Commons music in the silent movie theme and actually found a whole website of royalty-free silent movie sound tracks. I decided on “Old Timey”, mostly because I thought it would be the most ridiculous. I then created my dialogue and “cartoons”. Now that I look back on the video, I would definitely increase the font size if I were to create an entire series of “Lynon and Agador Discover . . .” videos for my science classroom (maybe!). Thanks to my wonderful and patient husband who gave me a very quick tutorial in video editing and showed me the ins and outs of file conversion, I was able to create my masterpiece without much effort!

When it came time to upload my video is when I ran into trouble. I had decided to go with Teacher Tube, as I am a teacher. But I found their site slow and cumbersome and I tried, unsuccessfully, 4 times to upload my video there. I finally abandoned Teacher Tube for You Tube (Canadian version of course!) and was able to upload in one attempt.

Unlike my previous escapades with Flickr, I can see boundless applications for video sharing in the classroom. I have been having my students create videos for assignments and projects since I first began teaching and so taking the next step of sharing those with the world, doesn’t seem so far fetched. What I did find interesting was how video sharing can enhance and enable teacher professional development.

On You Tube alone I found a video about Reading Recovery, Dyslexia, and one on Being Cyber Smart which I found very interesting and applicable to being a Teacher Librarian. This is really where Teacher Tube comes out on top, as teachers can subscribe to an RSS of the Professional Development Channel where I found this moving video:



Most of the pros post videos to their blogs for the purposes of sharing their own views and teachings in a more visual way. The fact that I can make a video on a topic near and dear to my heart, about my own profession, and geared towards my fellow teachers, and post it for all to see and use is profoundly powerful for me. I can participate in the professional development of teachers around the world. I had never even imagined that application until I started this class, and I had only an inkling about the extent of the possibilities before I started this post!

I fear you may all get very sick of seeing my videos taking over the web!