The use of YouTube videos to help illustrate or augment classroom teaching has become almost ubiquitous in schools nowadays – unless, of course, you’re in one of those schools that has YouTube blocked by a firewall 🙂
Another issue is the time it takes to locate good quality and useful videos that are appropriate for classroom use. WatchNow is a new site that lists an ever-growing collection of excellent educational content that is categorised by subject area, and comes complete with a rating system and comments from other users.
The site is still in its infancy, but growing fast – worth a browse and bookmark. An interesting reference to it in this edutopia post – includes some useful advice on using YouTube video in the classroom.
Great content and organisation, Derek. Do you know what type of license the content is released under? Seeing the people involved (http://www.watchknow.org/about/) I would think some type of CC is likely, but for both contributors and users it is important. Do any other readers know?
good question Paul
the terms of service state:
The Brightstorm Services are by copyright, trademark, patent, trade secret and other laws, and Brightstorm owns and retains all rights in the Brightstorm Services. Brightstorm’s copyrights, trademarks, patents and trade secrets may not be used without the prior written permission of Brightstorm. All content available through the Brightstorm Service are the proprietary property of Brightstorm, its users or its licensors. No content available through the Brightstorm Service may be modified, copied, distributed, framed, reproduced, republished, downloaded, scraped, displayed, posted, transmitted, or sold in any form or by any means, in whole or in part, without Brightstorm’s prior written permission. All eligible users are granted a limited license to access and use the Brightstorm Services and to download or print a copy of information posted on the Brightstorm website solely for your personal, non-commercial use. This license is revocable at any time without notice and with or without cause.
see more at http://www.brightstorm.com/corporate/terms-of-service
I could not find this, but it is a case of ‘buyer beware.’ It would be so much better if the contant was licensed freely, with most ‘rights’ being retained by the poster/author. I ask around and see what I can find that would achieve this.
Hi Derek,
With regards to videos commissioned by the Watchknow competitions for producing high quality videos — these will be licensed under a CC-BY-SA license. However, video hosted by other sites and merely referenced through the Watchknow portal carry the original content license of the creator which may be all rights reserved. Educators will need to check on the original license before they can adapt, modify or redistribute any videos sources found on the site.