SchoolTube

Sorry for the delay. Moravian's Internet wasn't working great on Sunday and I had two midterms on Monday.

What are the "affordances" and "constraints" of the technology? In other words, what does the technology allow us to do or prevent us from doing? 
  In our classroom, we're always looking for ways to keep students engaged. Most of the time, this can include video clips. Where's the best place to find video clips? Yep...YouTube. However, YouTube is blocked by most school district's servers because of all the noneducational and inappropriate content on there. So where can I go to show my students video clips?

That would be SchoolTube!

According to their website, "SchoolTube.com is the nation's largest K-12 moderated video sharing website that provides students and educators with a safe and FREE video sharing website that is exclusively endorsed by leading education associations. "

SchoolTube is free and safe to use in the classroom, some definite affordances.

Some downsides to it though are you cannot access all the videos that are on YouTube still. YouTube is more popular and more videos are posted there than SchoolTube. Yes, it has a lot of inappropriate content, but it also has a lot of educational ones too.

What new skills do we need to teach students?
Something I would have to teach students is how to use SchoolTube. The best ways to search for videos, how to post their own, how to watch videos, etc. I would also need to teach them what kind of videos can be found on SchoolTube. If I want my students to post videos on there, I need to teach them how to make their video.

What will I need to do differently in terms of how I teach in the classroom? How will teaching and learning look different?
I don't think that I would have to change much in terms of teaching. I would typically use SchoolTube as an aid. It would not replace my entire lesson. It would just support more understanding for my students.

How does the technology help me to foster creativity, innovation and some of the other 21st century skills?
Students will have the opportunity to create videos to post online to share with millions of people, something that could only be done with 21st century video sharing sites. Students also have the opportunity to create their own videos, which can allow them to get extremely creative and innovative.

What are some ways I can use this technology in my classroom?
I would use this to aid my lessons. Show a video clip here and there. For example, I could show a video with the waves of the ocean and how it relates to a sine and cosine curve, if such a video exists. If not, I can make one! Also, I could use it to demonstrate step by step how to solve certain math problems. Students could do one step at the time before the video and when I continue playing, they can check to make sure they did the right step.

Discussion Question: Do you feel that SchoolTube or YouTube would be more beneficial to use in your classroom (assuming YouTube isn't blocked)?