Every semester, we get questions from faculty regarding the use of YouTube videos in their classes. Faculty, whether they're teaching online or face-to-face, have become accustomed to integrating YouTube video in their instruction. Most often, faculty use the video to highlight or illustrate a particular point or to seed a discussion or point of instruction. Faculty have gotten fairly adroit at grabbing the embed code from YouTube and embedding a video in their online course or faculty web page. Likewise they have very little difficulty grabbing the link and sharing it with students, either online or in a PowerPoint presentation.
The issue that we're asked about most frequently is "How do I download a YouTube video?" The reason faculty may want to download the videos are many and varied. Most often cited are a lack of or slow Internet connection where they'll be using the video, or a fear that content on YouTube may disappear from semester to semester. There are many techniques for downloading content from YouTube. Some are fairly cumbersome and require multiple steps. The technique we illustrate in the video below is one of the simplest we've been able to find. The key to this approach is the use of a bookmarklet (bookmark + applet), which looks no different than the bookmarks we've all been using for years, but provides a lot more functionality than a vanilla bookmark.
You can grab the bookmarklet and read the instructions for yourself at the Google Operating System blog. So without further delay, here's the video - once you've mastered this technique, feel free to download our video;)
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Monday, November 30, 2009
Jing
Jing is a great free tool (there's a Pro version too) that allows you to quickly and easily grab screenshots from your computer or record a video of up to 5-minutes describing what you're doing on the computer. In this blog post, we provide first a video which gives a great overview of Jing, then a primer document which details how to download and install Jing, and finally a brief interview with Bob McGovern from the English Department, discussing his extensive use of Jing.
Give Jing a try - we think you'll be hooked!
Jing Overview
Jing Big09 Final
An Interview with Bob McGovern, English Department:
Give Jing a try - we think you'll be hooked!
Jing Overview
Jing Big09 Final
An Interview with Bob McGovern, English Department:
Monday, November 2, 2009
delicious
Delicious is a web-based social bookmarking tool that allows you to store bookmarks on a website accessible from any computer with Internet access. Delicious allows you to share your bookmarks, either publicly or privately, and to "tag" them for easy organization and future reference. The following video produced by Common Craft provides an overview of social bookmarking; the second video highlights delicious, a social bookmarking tool. You will also find a PDF document describing delicious and a brief video detailing cost, installation, and use.
Welcome!
Recent surveys show that today's students spend a whopping 20 hours per day interacting with media (video, audio, text messaging, Facebook/MySpace, instant messaging, the Internet, etc.). Even more astounding is that these 20 hours of media are compressed into only 7 hours each day--evidencing a level of multitasking that is unprecedented by previous generations. While our generation and older may question the value of our kids' immersion in this sea of digital content and further how effective their multitasking actually is, there is no question that this is how these kids work and live. Today's digital students demand digital content, as well as multiple stimuli--and empowerment--in their education. For this and subsequent generations, the traditional classroom with a content expert lecturing from the front of the room is becoming increasingly ineffective. With technology also changing faster than ever before, it is increasingly challenging for faculty to stay on top of exactly what technology, tools and resources are available to them.
This blog will showcase and share how Brookdale Community College faculty and staff from various disciplines can and are using free or inexpensive Web 2.0 Technology tools to engage today's digital students.
We look forward to your comments.
Mike Qaissaunee and Kelly Parr
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