#41 SchoolTube

This week, we review the tool

http://www.schooltube.com

SchoolTube is a video sharing website for primary and secondary schools. All videos on SchoolTube are moderated by teachers or SchoolTube employees.

If you or your students make videos, you probably need somewhere to put them online. This is so people can view them on the internet or you can embed them on your blog or website.

While YouTube is a common choice for sharing videos, it is not moderated, it has inappropriate content, it has open commenting and, for those reasons, is often blocked in schools. Vimeo is another popular choice but shares many of YouTube’s limitations. TeacherTube is a moderated video sharing website for schools but many people find it difficult to navigate and teachers can’t moderate their own videos.

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PRIZE

To welcome in a new school term here in Victoria, we are offering you the chance to win a TouchMic MityMic. This is thanks to our friends at ITmadeSimple!

All you have to do is help us spread the word about Tech Tools for Teachers!

1. Do something to spread the word about Tech Tools for Teachers. You could forward the email to staff members or teacher friends, send out a tweet, put a post on Facebook or Google +, write a post on your blog, phone a friend, send a text or write someone a letter. The choice is yours!

2. Leave a comment on this post and tell us what you did to spread the word about Tech Tools for Teachers. Be sure to let us know if you got anyone to sign up for our newsletters (reminder: just enter the email address in the box on the right hand side of our site).

We will choose the winning comment by the 29th July and announce the winner in our next newsletter (1st August). Good Luck!

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Why we like SchoolTube:

It is free
It is moderated
Teachers can moderate their school’s videos
It is easy to navigate
People can’t comment on videos (to avoid cyberbullying) but they can give videos a rating
Students over 13 can have an account so they can upload their own videos and have a private channel
It can be used for finding videos or storing your own videos
There is a comprehensive support section about making videos and using SchoolTube
It “cooperates” with GlogsterEDU so you can put SchoolTube videos in your Glogster.

How to use SchoolTube:

One of the main reasons you would want to use SchoolTube is to upload your videos or your students’ videos. This is what we will look at today.

1. Sign up: While anyone can browse the videos and content on SchoolTube, if you want to upload your own videos, you need to register. Go to http://www.schooltube.com and click on signup. You can choose to register as an educator, student or other.

Note: students need to be over 13 to register for their own account.

2. Enter your details: The first step in the registration process is to find your school. If your school isn’t in the search results, click on still can’t find your school/organisation.

You will then be prompted to enter your details including name, username, email, birth year, phone number and position. This is so SchoolTube can confirm you are actually an educator. You must use a school email address.

3. Confirmation: Soon, you will receive an email with your password. After you login, you can go to Account Preferences at the top of the SchoolTube homepage to change your password.

4. Becoming a moderator: After your register as an educator, you will receive an email from SchoolTube asking for a link or email address to verify you are employed by your school/district. You will then receive a confirmation email to say your request for moderator status on SchoolTube has been approved.

As a moderator you may:

upload and share your own media, and the media will be automatically approved.
approve or deny students’ media.
flag inappropriate media. If you flag content from your school as inappropriate, it is immediately removed from public viewing.
create a free SchoolTube Channel, see: Channel Users Guide

5. Upload your content: Uploading a video that you have made onto SchoolTube is easy. Next to the search box on your homepage, click on Upload Your Videos. Choose Upload a Video. Note: You can also import a video from YouTube or Vimeo if the creator of the video has allowed sharing.

Fill in the title, description, tags (keywords to help people find your video), choose a category and tick the terms and conditions box. Then click on Select File and Begin Upload.

If you have been approved as a moderator, your video will be automatically approved. You will get an email when your video has been processed and is live on SchoolTube. This could take 30 minutes to 3 hours.

6. Embed your video: When your video is live on SchoolTube, you can embed it on your blog or website. This simply requires you to copy the HTML embed code under your video and paste it into the HTML section of your blog/site. Find more detailed instructions on embedding and sharing videos here.

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For more professional development and step-by-step advice on using SchoolTube, visit the professional development section of the SchoolTube website.

Uses for SchoolTube in the Curriculum:

From being passive viewers of videos to being active producers of videos, the possibilities for using video with your students are simply endless.

Last year, we wrote a newsletter on Tom Barrett’s Interesting Ways Series. One of Tom’s presentations is about using video cameras in your classrooms. These days, most digital cameras have a video option so creating your own videos can be easier than you think.

Here is Tom’s presentation on using video in the classroom.

Have a go at using SchoolTube and tell us about your experience by leaving a comment. Tip: click on the title of this post and scroll down to find the comment box.

Good luck and look out for the next edition of Tech Tools for Teachers in two weeks.

Simon, Kathleen and Matt
http://www.teachgennow.com.au

PS – don’t forget to spread the word for your chance to win the mic!

16 Comments to “#41 SchoolTube”

Linda Wollan 18 July 2011 at 10:46 am #

Can you recommend a video upload site that primary students can use? Our kids want to upload video to their class blogs using embed code, but we haven’t yet found one that is either available (ie unblocked) or for under 13s.
- Kathleen Morris 18 July 2011 at 8:28 pm #
  
  @ Linda,
  
  Thanks for your question. I asked people on Twitter and a few people suggested KidsTube. When I had a look at KidsTube it said children under 13 need parental permission. Also, this site was blocked at my school. Obviously I could get it unblocked if need be but sites that are blocked by default at DEECD schools aren’t great because children at other schools can’t see the videos on our blog.
  
  Anyway, sorry I can’t help you more there. In my class, I just do the uploading for the students with a class account.
  
  Do let us know if you find something!
  
  Kathleen
  - Linda 18 July 2011 at 9:29 pm #
    
    Thanks Kathleen. I have been looking at KidsTube too. Have asked for it to be unblocked. Maybe I’ll try both and see how we go.
    By the way, took your challenge and tweeted your newsletter/post (a really useful resource – clear and concise). Thanks for response.
    - Kathleen Morris 20 July 2011 at 10:52 am #
      
      @ Linda – thank you for spreading the word! I did see your tweet and we appreciate your support.
      
      Let us know how KidsTube and SchoolTube goes.
Chris O 18 July 2011 at 10:57 am #

thanks for a great resource in Tech Tools. i’ve emailed my staff previously and encouraged them to subscribe and again today i emailed a further encouragement to join. as a small school, technology plays a vital role in our everyday teaching and learning and Tech Tools provides me with great ideas and ‘tools’ to try out.
- Kathleen Morris 18 July 2011 at 2:23 pm #
  
  @ Chris, that is great! Thanks so much for helping us spread the word and letting us know. Good luck with our comp!
Danielle Lynn 18 July 2011 at 6:55 pm #

Today I sent the staff at my school an email recommending that they subscribe to your Tech Tools Newsletter.

I am a huge fan of Teaching Generation Now and love getting new ideas to try out. I also love getting inspiration from your blogs for my own class website.

I hope that the staff at my school enjoy your newsletter as much as I do! I think even those with basic skills will be able to follow your simple instructions and get the confidence to try something new!!
- Kathleen Morris 18 July 2011 at 8:38 pm #
  
  @ Danielle,
  
  Thanks so much! We really appreciate your support.
  
  Good luck!
Cathy Vivian 18 July 2011 at 9:00 pm #

Love your site and am also highly susceptible to bribery!
My tweet: Great website, lots of practical ideas for integrating IT in education. bit.ly/gcxTus Bribe for spreading the word on the site.

Presenting for part of our PD day next week and will be sharing your site with my staff.

Cathy
- Kathleen Morris 20 July 2011 at 10:53 am #
  
  @ Cathy,
  
  Thanks for taking on the bribe! We appreciate your tweet!
  
  Kathleen
Marg Beagley 18 July 2011 at 9:47 pm #

Today I contacted several friends I haven’t seen for a while to let them know about your newsletter – teachers who previously taught at my school, as well as a couple of teacher friends in Argentina who I thought might be interested in signing up.
I love the newsletter and several staff members at my school subscribe to Tech Tools. We are able to keep the others up to date with things to investigate!
Keep up the great work.
- Kathleen Morris 20 July 2011 at 10:51 am #
  
  @ Marg,
  
  Thanks so much for letting me know and I also love the idea that you emailed me. If you don’t mind I will put it in here for others to see as they might like to do the same thing!
  
  As we aren’t getting any PD in ICT down here these days a few of us have decided to get together once a month to review your Tech Tools recommended sites and take them to staff meeting as a little PD of our own. You know how it is, teachers think ‘I’ll look at that later’ but there never seems to be a later as we are always snowed under with something. If we actually present a site on the IWB they are more likely to discover something they could use in their classroom.
  
  Kathleen
  - Shaun Mohr 20 July 2011 at 10:29 pm #
    
    Funny you should mention that Marg, I’ve been using instapaper of late to store websites that I want to read in more detail but I’m finding more often than not I’m building a big list of things I want to get to but going to do that later… it’s not until i need to present or talk to staff about something that I actually find the time to sort through and read what I’ve saved.
Andrew Lamb 20 July 2011 at 3:39 pm #

Hi Kathleen, I have forwarded your school tube article to all the staff in our school. I tend to do this for any of your Teach Gen Now posts I think are relevant to people.

Cheers and keep up the good work.

Andrew
- Kathleen Morris 21 July 2011 at 1:06 pm #
  
  @ Andrew,
  
  Thanks for letting us know. We really appreciate your support.
  
  Good luck,
  Kathleen
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