Places to post video for higher education types

Published by in digitalstorytelling, web 2.0 on July 10th, 2009

William “Bud” Deihl recently tweeted me a question I thought I’d answer via a blog post. His question was:

What locations / resources do you recommend for faculty to place their digital stories for use in higher ed?

Before I provide some links, I’ll suggest the first question faculty can/should address is how “public” and browsable do they want the video(s) to be? To limit the viral potential of videos as well as the distribution/dissimenation of videos, faculty (and others) can post video in a custom Ning.com website which can be created free. While people CAN browse to and embed videos posted to a Ning site, my experience has been videos posted to a Ning site do not have the viral potential of other sites like YouTube. This can be advantageous in some respects, since Ning-posted videos are therefore less likely to attract troll comments. Commenting on Ning videos is controlled by the access limits you create on your Ning site overall. We use a Ning site for our statewide oral history project, Celebrate Oklahoma Voices, and it works really well to moderate new members. Only members are permitted to comment on videos, and as a result have had virtually negligible issues with trolls.

If as wide a dissemination of the video(s) is desired, I recommend posting to YouTube. Check on the commenting options you can enable on your account and the video, and be sure to check up regularly. You can moderate comments, and in many cases that is a VERY good idea for YouTube videos. The YouTube channel of Kansas State University professor Michael Wesch is an examplar for faculty use of YouTube. His video, “An anthropological introduction to YouTube,” was posted a year ago has over 1 million views and over 1000 comments. It was presented to the Library of Congress and posted to YouTube on July 26, 2008.

I’m not sure how someone can go about posting videos to YouTube now that are longer than 10 minutes. If you know the answer to this, please let me (and other readers) know by commenting.

Other video sharing sites faculty might consider using are EduBlogs.tv, TeacherTube (though I think content there is mainly K-12 focused), Blip.tv, and Vimeo. I really like Dotsub because of the language transcription features of the site. We started using Dotsub in 2008 for the K-12 Online Conference.

WikiPedia has an exhaustive list of video sharing websites you might check out. I personally like using Flickr for video sharing, but clips must be less than 90 seconds long. Google Video was a GREAT option for higher education video sharing, but my understanding is you can no longer post videos there. Unlike YouTube, Google Video didn’t have a 10 minute “normal” limit on video length. It also let you keep videos private if desired, but you could share the link to videos with others and they didn’t have to login to access them. Bummer that ended.

iTunes University is another option for posting videos, but your institution has to have an iTunesU account and I’m pretty sure the “gatekeeping” arrangements for iTunesU portals are quite different than what you’ll experience just setting up an account on YouTube or Blip. Still, I think iTunesU portals do offer hosting for content so this could be an option depending on where you teach. iTunesU content is not transcoded to flash and embeddable, but it is readily subscribable for use with iTunes and iPods/iPhones.

Does anyone else have advice for Dr. Deihl and other higher education faculty interested in posting web videos?

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4 Comments »
  • http://exploratorylearner.blogspot.com/ Bud Deihl

    Wes,
    Thanks for your speedy reply to my inquiry. Responding in a blog is a great idea and a good lesson about learning in a social network. I’m sure your post will be helpful to many.

    I appreciate that your reply focuses first on the consideration of educational use and the need for private or public access and control of comments. All too often we jump to the “tools” first and live with the consequences.

    I’ll follow the links you’ve provided and do some experimenting with various resources.

    As I learn more about these various options, I’ll be looking at file types which each will accept/deliver, the length or file size limitation, and format. I’ve been encountering problems which in some cases deliver the audio, but video does not display. Other times, I see the ratio get distorted and can’t seem to control.

    Again, I really appreciate your help.

    Best regards,
    Bud

  • http://musicmiddleschoolandweb20.blogspot.com Susan Hurst

    http://www.fliggo.com/ is a great place to build your own “YouTube”. You control how open or private it is, you can embed your videos on other sites, and the free account allows videos up to 25 minutes in length.

    Best of all for my use in public school, it was not blocked (as of the end of school). I’ve uploaded videos for use by my students and will probably be uploading videos made by my students next year.

  • http://exploratorylearner.blogspot.com/ Bud Deihl

    Susan,

    Thanks for sharing this information and your comments regarding access control and length of video. Your voice of experience in an educational setting is most appreciated.

    Bud

  • http://theedublogger.edublogs.org/ Sue Waters

    What I am finding is numerous Universities and schools are using WordPress MU, either self hosting their own site or using Edublogs Campus, for their digital stories.

    Often they are doing this as part of eportfolios. The reason why is because they want to locate the digital content all in the one location and having their own site means they have greater control over managing their users as opposed to students hosting on their own individual blogs.

    It is also important for me to disclosure that I work for Edublogs as their Community Manager. I interact with a wide range of education sectors who share with me how they use their sites.

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