“Sport, like all life, is about taking risk.”
–Sir Roger Bannister, first person to run a sub-four-minute mile


This week was a risky one for me in Web 2.0 Land, as I have been bravely designing and creating my first ever wiki about the graphic novel Maus as a project for another course. I wanted to add my Wiki to this blog, even though I know we won’t be exploring Wikis for a few weeks, because embedded in it are two great little YouTube video clips which perfectly complemented my subject, plus a video book review by Blue Rectangle. Yes, videos definitely have their uses.

I must admit that I have chastised students who monopolized the school library computers and just watched YouTube videos when they should have been using their study block more productively. Occasionally a student would defend this 2.0 technology by stating “there’s some good stuff on there”. When I ordered my new MacBook Pro I got a great deal which offered a free iPod touch. In the last two months I have tried out the YouTube feature on my iPod and I must admit that it is a fascinating repository of videos – some silly and entertaining and some absolutely bizarre but also there are also some amazing educational and creative videos available for viewing and sharing. In time I have discovered how to use tags to stop wandering about and zero in on my subject and am now quite enjoying this new way to retrieve information. I can now truly appreciate the attraction students have for this videosharing site. I wonder what your favourite videos are?

This week’s Trailfire started at the Wikipedia site for YouTube where the statistics on viewership was staggering to the imagination. The article brought home two points which connected to my summer’s Intellectual Freedom coursework: how Viacom has sued YouTube for data on viewer information and the concern for privacy disclosure and also how YouTube holds their customers responsible for upholding the content criteria instead of previewing and censoring videos before posting. It would seem that YouTube supports intellectual freedom.

The "100 Awesome YouTube Videos for Librarians' really got the ideas flowing for possibilities in my own high school library. What fun to make a introductory video and embed it in the school website. One video which spoke to me was “A Librarian’s 2.0 Manifesto”: “I will become an active participant in moving my Library forward” and “I will take an experiment approach to change and be willing to make a mistake.” I absolutely loved this one because the graphics, the music and the text combined to share a powerful message that immediately inspired and reached me. A firsthand experience validating the magic of this media! I tried to embed this video into my blog so I could share it but couldn't figure out how. I'll keep working on it but if anyone has a suggestion...

In the classroom video has the ability to engage students, it appeals to their methods of communication, it addresses different learning styles and modalities, and, as one article I read mentioned, in some cases helps to close the digital divide for students who do not have this level of technology in their homes. Video clips are wonderful tools to embed into Wikis and blogs or insert into a lesson - the possibilities are limitless. I looked through the TeacherTube site and tried a few key words (Riel, Shakespeare and dissection) and found videos that could even be sorted by grade level or inspired my own creative ideas. Wow! Imagine tech-savvy teachers tapping into the wealth of resources (both video and print) that the TeacherTube site offers and knowing that the materials are teacher-tested and the video clips are safe with none of the “surprises” of other public videosharing sites. I don’t know of any teachers in our school who are using this resource but I would love to hear from anyone who has enjoyed success using TeacherTube or other videosharing resources.

Back to the Trailfire, one aspect of videosharing that was introduced in An Anthropological Introduction to YouTube was the social connection and how it is “linking people and not just information”. Seeing videosharing as a participatory culture and how this has grown from the need for individuals to connect to a sense of community, was new angle. I had been focusing on the access aspect of videosharing and didn’t realize until Michael Wesch mentioned it that 88% of uploads are original creations by the mostly 18–24 year old users seeing this medium as a way of connecting, socializing and reconnecting to humanity.

However, as I watched Wesch share video clip examples during in his entertaining presentation, it also make me think about what happens when someone uploads to a site like YouTube. When you do this you grant YouTube full license to do anything they wish with the video – sell it, edit, remix and even distribute. You can delete but YouTube can still retain their copy. Being a participant in the videosharing culture calls for some discretion. Perhaps one day I will be have a motivation to use my webcam feature and actually post a video. Meanwhile this romp through videosharing has shown me that there are a wealth of terms I have yet to understand: filesizes, metadata, monetize, mashups, flash wrapper…