Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Google Video
Last week I posted some information on how to create a vodcast. Let’s say that you are a TL and want to provide your students access to a vodcast you created about activities that are going to be going on in the LMC next month. How might you make your vodcast available to students? One easy (and free) way is to upload your vodcast to Google Video. Google Video Uploader allows you to create an account and upload video files of any length or size as long as you own the rights to the materials you upload. Placing your vodcast in Google Video allows users to search for and view online the videos you create. Searching for videos is easy too. Simply type a search term into the search box and Google Video searches its archive for relevant results. Just for fun I typed in ‘Northern Exposure’ which is one of my favorite tv shows of all time and got 414 results including the title opening and various clips from some of the show’s best episodes. Try searching a favorite topic of yours and see what you find. Would you use Google Video for uploading your own vodcasts (personal or school-related)? Do you foresee any potential problems having students search for videos using this site?
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3 comments:
Open searching on google video could easily be problematic at school. In my experience I have come upon kid inappropriate sites searching youtube or google video in fewer clicks than when I search the google. I searched "working in a library" and within within 2 clicks I had a selection of first orgasm themed clips. These particular sites were very tame but others may not have been. You never know how what people will tag their video with.
I'm a huge Northern fan too! Just for fun I looked up my other all time favorite, Six Feet Under and got to watch the powerful final 10 minutes again!
Mariah,
Though Google Video could be a great tool for vodcasting, you're right that it could be problematic if students are allowed open searching on such a site. As a TL we would have to be very careful about directing students in their use of this site.
Glad to hear from a fellow Northern Exposure fan! Even though you may determine not to use this site for vodcasting, I'm glad you at least found something entertaining.
Hi Elise,
Thanks for pointing this site out to us. I'm a little confused, though, because for the topic I chose ("jayhawks" -- it's the KU mascot -- they just won their final four basketball game), the first 10 results I got were all from Youtube. I did a second search, and got results from youtube, myspace and google video. So it seems that Google video is pulling video from anywhere on the web (and quite heavily from youtube) -- not just from the things uploaded to google video.
In any case, given that google video is pulling video from across the web I would have a problem with just opening this up to kids. I can certainly imagine having links to certain videos that I wanted them to watch, but I don't think I would let them just search at will, as there is quite a bit of non-educational/inappropriate stuff out there.
I know this is true with regular web searches as well. But somehow the idea of a little kid typing in some term they thought was harmless but which then brought up some raunchy video makes me feel extra cautious.
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