TeachersFirst Edge Review: for any technology user comfortable with watching video and/or using video cameras. You can be as adventurous or not as you wish! This safe, free site lets students and teachers show off their talents by sharing their appropriate videos to be viewed all over America. With a simple registration, you can upload your classroom video, which then goes into a “holding” area. That video then awaits approval by the website’s moderator before becoming available. Because of the layering of approval, this site poses no security concerns to students or schools. Not only can teachers and students upload videos, but administrators may also want to post welcome or informational videos to be viewed by parents and students. You may also wish to share some of these videos with your class. Teachers will find videos suitable for classroom instruction (and lesson plans). Use the search box at the top of the webpage to look for topics that relate to your current units of study. If your school blocks streaming video sites, consider accessing this site and choosing videos at home, using a tool such as Vixy (reviewed here) to bring them in on a USB stick for class use. Searching the site and simply viewing the videos does not require any registration or log-in. There is a link to SchoolTube Games , as well. Viewing the videos and games requires Flash. You can get it from the TeachersFirst Toolbox page. See a sample video at the end of this review. 9437
In the Classroom: Skills Needed: no special technological skills are necessary to search the site or view the videos. If you wish to upload your own SchoolTube video, you must register as a user at the site. Registration is free. Create and save your edited videos where you can find them on your computer. (Windows Movie Maker or iMovie are great, free tools for video). Then upload to SchoolTube. You can share the video via link or by embedding it in another web page (see sample below).
Safety/Security Concerns: If the teacher is the one uploading, the only potential concerns include posting videos with identifiable information or images about your students, school, or class. Check your school policies about posting pictures of your school. If you post student videos, obtain written parent permission to post student work, again within school policies. Any student visible in a video should also have parent permission in accordance with school policies.
Possible Uses: Students can use SchoolTube to share videos with sister schools, or to broadcast weekly news from their school or classroom. Students can also produce project videos on any curriculum topic. Try making “You Are There” videos about different events in history! Teachers may want to use this site to share ideas and lesson plans with other teachers across the nation. Make “how to” videos to share with parents and friends. Embed SchoolTube’s video player into your school’s website and encourage parents to view school news or clips from events they were not able to attend.
Here is sample "embedded" video shot for us by the SchoolTube folks at the NAESP conference, 2008. We included it here by simply copying the "Embed" code from the Schooltube site and pasting it into our site, just as you could with your teacher web page or wiki:
TeachersFirst Edge Review: for any technology user comfortable with watching video and/or using video cameras. You can be as adventurous or not as you wish! This safe, free site lets students and teachers show off their talents by sharing their appropriate videos to be viewed all over America. With a simple registration, you can upload your classroom video, which then goes into a “holding” area. That video then awaits approval by the website’s moderator before becoming available. Because of the layering of approval, this site poses no security concerns to students or schools. Not only can teachers and students upload videos, but administrators may also want to post welcome or informational videos to be viewed by parents and students. You may also wish to share some of these videos with your class. Teachers will find videos suitable for classroom instruction (and lesson plans). Use the search box at the top of the webpage to look for topics that relate to your current units of study. If your school blocks streaming video sites, consider accessing this site and choosing videos at home, using a tool such as 