YouTube is a popular Web 2.0 video sharing website, and it can be a useful tool. Unfortunately since YouTube also hosts a wide variety of videos with little to no educational value, it is also blocked by the school system. Fortunately, there is a solution to this dilemma.

TeacherTube

TeacherTube (http://www.teachertube.com/) is a video sharing site that is geared specifically toward educators. To start using TeacherTube you simply go to the website and start watching videos. You can also search for videos on the site. TeacherTube tracks several statistics for each video, so you can browse the most frequently viewed or the most highly rated videos. To further assist in browsing videos on a particular topic, videos are categorized into numerous Channels. Some of the Channels include Elementary, Middle School, Math, and Reading; if you can think of a topic, it is probably already on TeacherTube.

If you would like to upload an educational video to TeacherTube, you need to sign up for a free account. After that you can upload as many videos as you want, and you can share links to the videos on the school eBoard. Alternatively, you can embed the videos into a page on the school's wiki.

Google Video

Google Video (http://video.google.com/) allows you to search videos. The two best things about Google Video is that it is not blocked and it contains a lot of videos on current events. As I am writing this newsletter, I am listening to Randy Pausch's last lecture. It is also extremely easy to find news stories on a variety of current events, and I have found Presidental Debates as well as interviews with CEOs.

You can also upload videos to Google Video; you just need a Google account and a video to upload. While TeacherTube would be the best site to post videos of classroom activities and lessons, Google Video would be more appropriate for videos that were taken outside the classroom. As with TeacherTube you can provide a link to your Google videos, or you can embed the video in a page.

Finally when you start searching on Google Video, make sure that you click on the radio button the says “videos hosted by Google” before you submit your search.