In so many ways, YouTube is the world’s video portal. It is also, perhaps, the fastest growing website.
Sure, lots of it is seedy and inappropriate. But so much of its content is legitimately important for education, for media and information fluency. For example, I blogged recently about the learning potential of the YouTube Symphony Orchestra, an international collaboration. YouTube’s YouChoose became one of the richest presidential campaign resources. Our President-elect now chooses to upload his transition team messages to our nation on this portal.
The fact is, YouTube is blocked in many of our schools. And many of us are suffering this loss.
The fact is, every single day many of us spend a good deal of time trying to figure out how to get the videos we need to use in our classrooms and libraries.
The fact is, students who really do need to use YouTube videos in their presentations, face great frustration.
Pretty much everyday, in schools everywhere, and at homes at night, students and teachers are trying to figure out how to best capture video that is blocked to them during the school day.
I have seven suggestions:
I’ve been trying to collect a bunch of other portals in our Video Pathfinder. Pease help build this wiki!
2. TechCrunch recently shared a YouTube download tool. Enter the YouTube URL for the video in the search box and the video will be downloaded and converted to flv format. Download and use VLC, a cross-platform media player to view it. This works like a dream for me!
4. KickYouTube is kind of amazing. It works like this:
Load the URL for the YouTube video in your browser (I chose My Hope, one of my favorite videos, an original song by sweetafton23 about digital footprints):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avxpn_MsPYs
Insert the word "kick" between the www. and the youtube.com section of the URL:
http://www.kickyoutube.com/watch?v=avxpn_MsPYs
The page will reload with the KickYouTube toolbar. You will be prompted to choose a video format–FLV, MPG, MP3, HD MP4, AVI, iPhone, etc. MOV does not seem to be an option.
Note–The KickYouTube site offers a video demonstration in English and Spanish on how to use the service. You actually need to begin in the address line in YouTube to initiate the kicking process.
5. The Googlesystem blog offers instructions for downloading YouTube videos as MP4 files. (In fact they link to a Google search with a variety of result options listing other possible strategies.)
6. Kiersten, one of my very favorite students, discovered a strategy for including YouTube (and other Flash) videos in PowerPoint presentations and along the way introduced me to Wikihow. (That site is worthy of its own post for sure!). Anyway, the seniors are having great success adding videos directly into their PowerPoints. It’s gone kinda viral as an alternate to linking or to downloading and converting videos to WMVs using Zamzar.
7. And finally, similar to KickYouTube, Wikihow also suggests How to Download YouTube Videos Using Voobys. There’s also a YouTube explanation. This one I’ve yet to try.
8. Fast Video Download is a Firefox add-on that works well with its accompanying FLV player tool (for PCs). It works for me, on my MacBook, in combination with old favorite Zamzar for converting those FLV files to MOVs.
(Sorry to those folks who read this post a while ago. I can’t count!)
From our commenters:
Alec:
9. Miro
10. Freedom Sticks
Jeff:
11. vixy.net (another FLV converter and will bring the YouTube vid straight to your desktop or USB drive)
Later discoveries:
No related posts.
None of this works sadly… My computer is so tight it can’t even go into the C:/ drive or the control panel…
if it doesnt allow u to access ur harddrive then if there r icons on ur desktop(shortcuts) then right click 1 and click find target and it will open up the program files.
Hope i helped
good story
It is a sad day when a supposedly educated person – boasting a PhD no less – encourages bypassing educational institutions rules and regulations. Any truly educated and well-balanced person would never undermine an educational intuition’s efforts to minimize frivolous entertainment. Here’s a hint to alleviate your so-called technology block: download, save, and transport your educational youtube videos. Don’t know how? Ha! Why I’m not surprised – instead of truly educating yourself you rather infect others with your ignorance.
To a fellow teacher:
Why don’t you share your knowledge of how to download, save, and transport educational youtube videos rather than insulting those who do share their knowledge? I’m sure that more people than me would like to know how.
it would be good for me
I find it very disturbing that individuals, teachers no less, would entertain the idea of circumventing school, district, or organizational policy. What message are you sending to the children?
There can be no denying the fact that YouTube has become a cultural phenomenon, leading the sociotechnological movement. Let’s face it, YouTube has some valid educational content. Unfortunately, it is buried beneath layers of soft-porn, copyright infringements, and vulgar profanity. Playboy.com may have some valid educational content, should it be unblocked as well?
I would contend that it is not the content of YouTube which should be integrated into the curriculum, but the form and function which is the result of the amalgam of the social aspects of video and the distributed nature of the internet.
On a final note, it is against YouTube’s terms of service to download ‘or rip’ videos from their site. It is of utmost importance that we promote digital citizenship to the next generation of adults.
try using the real player video downloader.
enter http://www.viddeo.net and watch youtube videos from there.
well, until i hear otherwise i’m gonna KICK youtube! i also do contact those who create the orig and they’ve always been thrilled to share!
if you want a quick comic life cheat sheet on how to Kick youtube google: mhms wiki kickyoutube and snag it!
~Gwyneth Jones
Library Militant
http://www.proxy-list.org, get a free proxy from this website i suggest transparent, then you can view any website…happy? Btw this works great for my school! have fun.
hsjncbejd
The Kulsara K-12 educational portal embeds many of the Youtube educational videos. They also sort them according to various grade levels.
Many school firewalls already allow Kulsara.com to pass through. If your school firewall blocks it, you should suggest to the admin to let kulsara.com through the firewall.
Youtube videos sorted according to grade levels:
kulsara.com/forum/index.php?action=grades
Kulsara Media Gallery:
kulsara.com/forum/index.php?action=mgallery
I attempted the “kick” Youtube thing and it rates it as Rated-R…Meaning the sites got a keyword that’s inappropriate enough to block with the school firewall.
try this if you want to access youtube again after it’s blocked:
http://www.tomatosoft.biz/blog/2010/04/11/download-youtube-while-its-blocked-by-isp/
none of this stuff works