Video Portals

Integrating video in the lesson supports different learning styles,  as videos support both the visual and auditory learners. In addition using video in the classroom also reinforce reading material by providing visual context and imagery thus bridging the gap between students from different economic backgrounds or even from different cultures or different geographical area.  In other words student’s common general knowledge is improved. Presenting lessons using videos also motivates the students better than just showing presentation with plain text.  

If you are thinking about which video portals fit your needs, consider the following:

YouTube offers a collection of videos uploaded by users. It provides convenient search features and the ability to embed videos or share them through email, links, forums or social networking websites. Each video includes a like or dislike rating option, viewing stats and a list of suggested similar video clips. YouTube users can also post video responses to clips shared by other users.  Google Video is a video search engine. The results are educational videos from different sites without the irrelevant videos or racy content seen in YouTube. Even the YouTube video results have no obscene or rude comment at the bottom unlike most of the videos found directly in YouTube, so Google Video must apply a filter for the search results. Educational Videos is a site archiving a collection of educational videos on 34 categories, (35 if you include the Uncategorized Category). Unlike Google Video it does not offer a lot of videos on each categories EduTube also offers a collection of videos that are organized according to different search options: Category, Video Type, Length and Educational Level. It does not offer a lot of videos like YouTube and Google Video. To sum it up, YouTube, Google Video , Educational Videos and EduTube all offers video search tools but they differ in quantity and quality of videos offered. Educational Videos and EduTube  both aim to make the best free online educational videos, easy to find, watch and download but moderators have to approve the videos you upload unlike YouTube that you can upload videos unconditionally. Unlike the other video sites YouTube offers video editing tools such as the annotation tool to the users. YouTube does not need other hosting. You can upload a raw video directly on it unlike EduTube which only allow videos already in other video hosting sites like YouTube.

If I can only use one site I would choose YouTube because it not only allow me to upload my videos, it also offers tools to make it interesting. As for the inappropriate content I can solve that by having a YouTube channel for my class or for work so only the videos I want the students to see would be displayed. Because of the sharing tools it offers, if my school server don’t allow YouTube in the school computer, I can embed the videos I need in my Google docs presentation or MS Powerpoint or in the class blog or class wiki (as the case may be), this way the students won’t see the inappropriate and rude comments.