digitalgoonies.com

http://www.quietube.com/

OK, first off, let me just say that this website itself doesn’t really do anything. But it does provide you with a cool little bookmarklet for your browser that will forever revolutionize how you show videos to others, especially students.

Once you install this bookmarklet, here’s what you do…

1. Visit a website with a video from YouTube, Vimeo, or Viddler (more to be added later).
2. Click on the bookmarklet on your bookmarks toolbar.

Magically, the video will open in a separate, blank page that hides all the comments and suggested videos. These comments and suggested videos can sometimes be vulgar and inappropriate to show students, so this is a way around that! You’ll even have your choice of a light or dark background!

Here’s the tutorial video that shows it well from their own website:

Isn’t that awesome? From this day forward (if you are lucky enough to have access to YouTube in your classroom), this is how you should show YouTube videos!

Oh, and one more thing… showing videos this way skips the video advertisements at the beginning of most videos! That’s right- skips the ads! What’s not to love about that!

You can even send links to YouTube videos to others that will open within the Quietube shell, like this one: http://quietube3.com/v.php/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwOCY0nPDG0 (if you’re an educator, you’ll enjoy this great video from Kevin Honeycutt)!

http://www.60secondrecap.com/

I am liking this site… a lot… for several reasons.

First of all, the site has a collection of 60-second videos centered around classic literature. These videos summarize different aspects of the literary work in succinct 60-second segments. For example, Fahrenheit 451 is explained with ten different videos, each focusing on a single aspect such as: overview, plot, characters, theme, motifs, etc. Take a look at the 60 Second Recap page for Fahrenheit 451 then click on the thumbnails on the right to view the videos.

The other reason I like this site is that it showcases what our own students should be doing with technology. Making a video is not rocket science! Pull out your Flip cameras (or alternate video camera, since Flip cameras are scheduled for end of life), add a few props, and break down the story or novel you just read. Now that is what we call technology integration!