President Elect Obama is on YouTube, When can we unblock it?

[Ernie Easter]

On December 19, 2008 Joyce Valenza posted When YouTube is blocked (seven ways around) on her blog, School Library Journal.

She writes, “In so many ways, YouTube is the world's video portal. It is also, perhaps, the fastest growing website. Sure, lots of it is seedy and inappropriate. But so much of its content is legitimately important for education, for media and information fluency. For example, I blogged recently about the learning potential of the YouTube Symphony Orchestra, an international collaboration. YouTube's YouChoose became one of the richest presidential campaign resources. Our President-elect now chooses to upload his transition team messages to our nation on this portal.”

I find content on YouTube to use in my class and then need to download it at home. Apparently, I am not alone. She goes on to state “Pretty much everyday, in schools everywhere, and at homes at night, students and teachers are trying to figure out how to best capture video that is blocked to them during the school day.”

Ms. Valenza gives seven suggestions about ways around this. Included is a plea to help her build the “Video Pathfinder” in her wiki. Visit her blog and you will find there are some wonderful suggestions there that is well worth your time to peruse.

But what is even more telling is a comment on December 19, 2008 by Dave S. He says, “First the kids find ways around, now the teachers are sharing. I LOVE it! (Can you hear the tech directors screaming?!)” Somewhere, somehow, the collective minds in education/ tech communities on the internet must work to resolve the filtering/blocking issue for YouTube and other valid sites. There are some schools where teachers can not even read this post. Seedlings is a social networking site.

I have several suggestions:
1, We need to develop curriculum that teaches responsible skills that promote the acceptable use of Web 2.0 tools. Development of these skills must promote 21st Century learning for all students.
2. If filters must be in place, then all teachers must have over rides.
3. YouTube must develop a rating system for its videos that rates each video for explicit language, sex, or other, from a school’s point of view, inappropriate content. That way the objectionable material can be filtered if you choose to or even better, teach students to do their own.

What suggestions do you have?

[coakes]

Last year I opened YouTube at our HighSchool and put the onus of use on the staff and students. This year the middle school principal said, "they go on YouTube at home, so why not here and then we can use the good stuff," and I agreed. We have it opened up and are teaching responsible use. So far, so good.
Cheryl

[Ernie Easter]

Somehow we need to get all tech coordinators and administrators to see it the same way. One principal who gets it at Principalspage.com who writes "An open letter to Superintendents and Principals. http://tinypaste.com/e4219

[James Gubbins]

I see both sides of this debate. I was the Network Administrator for a Catholic High School in Illinois for many years. The snarky and wildly inappropriate comments at the bottom of the most innocuous videos were so disheartening we kept it blocked. Now, I am in a district that has it open and I have not noticed any serious repercussions.

I agree that it is the teacher's responsibility to teach digital citizenship. Unfortunately, we must teach them how to be responsible digital citizens first!

It is difficult to unblock filters for teacher's only and that practice would open the school to potential problems; if just one teacher used unfiltered access inappropriately. Depending on the filter you utilize, It is difficult if not impossible to unblock just one site for a specified group of users.

Imagine if you will, how flushed and uncomfortable I was at a catholic school when the principal (a catholic priest) had unfiltered access and received an e-mail that looked legitimate but ended up being a link to a pornographic site that popped up about 100 more! I'm not sure who was more embarrassed!

Or my surprise when I put on a series of Little Bear videos for my three year old daughter and suddenly a flurry of vulgarity was coming from Little Bear's mouth. What should have been innocuous had me diving for my mouse in slow motion! What should have been an enjoyable experience for my child ended up exposing her to things I wouldn't want high school students hearing.


What's the alternative? There are many!
Teachertube.com is very similar to Youtube and while it doesn't have the content base of youtube, ALL of it's videos serve an educational purpose. I would hazard a guess that at least 75% of youtube content is not original and can easily be found on other sites. For example the video Epic 2015 (which I highly recommend) can be found at Youtube but also at metacafe.com, dailymotion.com and vodpod.com. Using a tool like google video search can easily help you find the same content at other sites if your school filters youtube.

Another way to avoid the filter issue (although the legality of it may be a little gray), is to download the youtube content and embed it in a presentation (thus avoiding the inappropriate content)

If such a rating system as proposed was developed the same people who are asking for unfiltered access would be screaming that they couldn't get to certain content.

On the surface it may seem that I am opposed to opening up youtube and to a certain extent I am. But I realize that Youtube also can serve a purpose and provides content that will not be found elsewhere. There is a balance we need to find in an educational institution that gets even more perilous when we start traveling the information superhighway.

Forgive me for getting on my soapbox. I just feel if we as adults are responsible and willing to put in a little effort we can avoid some of the negativity that goes along with youtube and still reap the benefits that video on the internet has to offer!

[Ernie Easter]

Thank you for your reply. Many of the issues you discuss are the same ones I wrestle with also.

You are correct that we must be teaching our students how to be good digital citizens, but in order to do that we must have all teachers knowledgeable about the digital world and how to use the variety of tools available. Unfortunately it continues to be many of our students doing the leading in this realm. Many of us on Seedlings are the exception.

Vicki Davis wrote an article about working with PLNs with her students on Edutopia, "Building a Digital Locker, Personal Learning Networks Explained" She has done a lot with her Flat Classroom and Digiteen Projects around the issues of Digital Citizenship.

A January 12, 2009 posting on her Coolcatteacher Blog is specifically on point with "Youtube: Everywhere but the Classroom (And How you can Bring it The.... We have all (or most of us who use YouTube) have found ways around it being blocked at school. My favorite is to download the videos at home and minimize that window on my browser. I can play it at anytime. Does anyone think that students are not already doing this also? The other day in class I was looking for the "Cellist in the Schoolyard" video about the Cellist of Sarajevo. YouTube was blocked and I hadn't downloaded it a head of time. My students came up with other places to search for videos and the race was on. We didn't find it elsewhere and I ended up bringing it in the next day.

My final challenge to all is: how do we get YouTube to rate content? My students know I am watching and if bad decisions are made, there are consequences (loss of internet). But what it really comes down to is teaching responsible behavior within which is digital citizenship. If we do not do it as teachers, who will?