Common Craft Blog
TeacherTube: An Educator's Workaround for Online Video
By leelefever on December 07, 2007 - 3:44pm
It's easy to assume that YouTube and similar hosts are open to everyone but it's not the case for a lot of professionals. We hear from people almost every day that need a way to access our videos off the web because their organizatio/school restricts access to websites like YouTube.
We recently became aware of TeacherTube, which is a video sharing site that has become a workaround for educators who can't access YouTube videos on the web. Many schools may block YouTube, but allow access to TeacherTube because it's an educational resource.
The site is a clone of YouTube with more advertising. For it to work in the educational world, there seems to be two big issues (besides quality content):
1. Convincing schools to unblock TeacherTube
2. Making sure that TeacherTube remains a safe resource.
I asked Adam Smith, the co-founder, about how schools work to make sure Teacher Tube is unblocked.
To answer your question, we absolutely will work and continue to work with schools to help unblock TeacherTube, however the TeacherTube Community Members usually beat us to it. If any members campuses are blocking TeacherTube, they can email me direct at adam@teachertube.com and I can provide server information and/or generate a letter to the school’s technology director.
I also asked about how TeacherTube remains safe for the educational setting.
When we started the design phase of the website, site monitoring was top priority. That is why we keep the quote at the top "Keep it SAFE! Flag all Inappropriate Videos." Once our member number grew over 20,000+ in the first three months, we new we had to add [flag as] inappropriate features and ask the TeacherTube Community for help. On all videos we added inappropriate video and comment flagging capabilities. So we not only have our staff constantly look over inappropriate content, we now have over 45,000+ members watching and flagging inappropriate content.
I've become a fan of TeacherTube because many of our fans depend on it to help educate others. It's nice to see that they've been able to scale and stay relevant by working with a dedicated community of users.
Find Common Craft videos on TeacherTube here.
Blocking Video
Thank you for thinking of your fans in the education community. While necessary, content filters present a real challenge when it comes to sharing some of the best content on the web, like video. TeacherTube has provided a good alternative when the content is available - something I can link to safely. I've seen a handful of schools who are blocking TeacherTube based on a blanket prohibition of streaming content, however most of the schools I work with are allowing TeacherTube. As long as the content continues to remain school-friendly, the case for allowing TeacherTube is pretty solid. Thanks to CommonCraft, and to Adam and his team at TeacherTube for some great content and a great place to get it.
Streaming Media
For the kid's sake, I sure hope the schools that have this "blanket prohibition of streaming content" come around and realize the importance and the potential that a website such as Teachertube can provide. I think a lot of these schools just need to come to terms with the fact that streaming meadia does not just consist of music videos, etc. and there is so much more to it these days that can benefit all students.
TeacherTube on WordPress.com
TeacherTube rocks. There's no doubt about it. It has room for improvements (sometimes slow, tools are sometimes quirky) but it's great to have a resource like this dedicated to education. I hope (feel confident) that improvements will come as the resource grows. It's disappointing that WordPress.com hasn't yet cleared TeacherTube so that we can post videos from TT rather than having to rely on YouTube. I've asked WordPress.com about this and was told that they have no intentions to add it at this time. Perhaps if enough of us make them aware of our interest in using TeacherTube videos on our WordPress.com blogs that they will make this possible.
TeacherTube
TeacherTube rocks. There's no doubt about it. It has room for improvements (sometimes slow, tools are sometimes quirky) but it's great to have a resource like this dedicated to education. I hope (feel confident) that improvements will come as the resource grows. http://createunity.biz - business. all about business.