Join the video revolution
SchoolTube offers free moderated online hosting for student journalism
Originally published in the Spring 2011 edition of the Dow Jones Newsfund's Adviser Update
by Gary Clites
Not many years ago, there was a bright line dividing print journalists from television journalists and even television broadcasters from radio newspeople. Media convergence has ended all that. Today, newspaper and radio journalists carry flipcams so they can shoot video to accompany their online stories, and video reporters rush to their laptops to type the text that will provide more detail below the video window carrying their story. The wall dividing types of journalists has dissolved, and communications educators need to introduce all students, whether they focus on print or broadcasting, to the skills needed to shoot, edit and upload video.
The modern journalism educator interested in adding video to her students’ coverage faces a number of issues. While the rest of the world uses YouTube to host video, that won’t work for us. “Our district blocks student access to sites like YouTube,” said Rob Zdrojewski, technology teacher and director of the Amherst Tech TV program at Amherst Middle School in Amherst, New York, “and once I learned of SchoolTube's safe moderated sharing system, I felt comfortable approaching my administration and using SchoolTube for sharing our recorded daily newscasts and student projects.” Indeed, a majority of teachers I contacted said YouTube was blocked at their schools. Beyond that, YouTube is an unmoderated site that hosts a lot of less than school appropriate videos with which most journalism programs would not want to be associated.
Launched in 2007, SchoolTube is a site that offers free, moderated video hosting in a safe environment to educators and their students. While built as a for-profit site, co-founder and marketing director Andrew Arizpe said SchoolTube is, “extremely sensitive to the concerns of schools and educational associations in regards to advertising. Most of our revenue comes from sponsors who want to contribute to our site by hosting contests, creating channels, or uploading intriguing videos.” Indeed, visiting SchoolTube, the sponsorships are so subtle they could easily be missed.
Using SchoolTube is easy. You click “Signup” on the home page and are taken to a pretty standard registration system. Note that only teachers can be moderators of publicly viewable SchoolTube channels and that you will have to provide the name and phone number of your school so the site can confirm that you really are affiliated with the institution. (Students can sign up with SchoolTube to host their videos, but only on private sites to which only they have access.)
To upload videos to your SchoolTube page, login and use either the available online or downloadable desktop uploader. Many school systems (including my own) have blocks on their servers to prevent the uploading of large digital files. In that case, you may have to ship files from a home computer (I do). Even with a decent Internet connection, uploading a ten minute file can take several hours, so budget the time.
Each SchoolTube site has a featured video that automatically plays when the page is opened with links to all other videos accessible via thumbnails arrayed at the bottom of the page. If you want to make a newly uploaded video your default in the main window, click on the thumbnail and you will be taken to that show’s page. A link below the video window allows you to move the new footage into the top window on the main page. An “embed code” on the right hand side of the page allows you to easily embed your video on any other web page by simply copying and pasting the code (as html).
Once you set up a SchoolTube account, you can have a free SchoolTube “channel” which can function as your school’s video website. Better, as a teacher you are listed as moderator of your channel. Students can upload video to the page, but you are given a chance to view the work, then approve or disapprove it for publication. You can also remove a piece later if you think better of it (though removing and replacing video could be a hair easier). “I don’t have to worry about my students viewing inappropriate material when they’re on the SchoolTube site, because all of the content is screened by moderators,” said Marc Rice, TV Production teacher at Vanguard High School in Ocala, Florida. “It’s a great learning tool that puts students in touch with clean online media.”
Another feature of the site is access to long term storage for student created video. “The ability to archive all past work is tremendous,” said Zdrojewski. “I've even had kids come back years later saying how they used their middle school video projects as part of their digital portfolios to apply to colleges and internships.”
As an in class teaching tool, these archives can be invaluable. Essentially, every week SchoolTube allows teachers access to the work of video journalists across the country. Janet Kerby, formerly a high school broadcasting teacher and now adjunct professor at Kent State University, used SchoolTube to share the work of other students with her own. “Students often look at their own work through rose-colored viewfinders,” she said. “ I found they were more efficient in critiquing work of students they didn’t know and then became more open and competent at critiquing their own team’s work.”
In sum, SchoolTube offers teachers and students free video hosting in a safe, moderated environment that is easy to use. It’s a near perfect example of a for-profit model that genuinely contributes to the educational experience.
Gary Clites’ students SchoolTube site is at: http://www.schooltube.com/user/wnhstv
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© Gary Clites 2011