In my general music classes I like to use You Tube to bring the musician we're discussing to life for my students. For example, in a lesson last week we were learning about "non-traditional" composers and their works. Instead of just talking about John Cage's 4'33" we watched a You Tube clip which brought the piece to life for the students and led to some interesting discussions.
My problem with You Tube has always been that some of the comments that are posted are really not appropriate for the classroom. This short clip shows two different ways to make the comments disappear.
http://mustech.net/2011/02/09/hide-youtube-comments-tutorial
It worked great on my personal PC and I can't wait to try it on the Mac at school.
For me, YouTube is completely blocked on the school's network. The network even goes as far as to block embedded videos with a youtube extension attached to it (i.e., videos on a blog that came from youtube are even blocked without ever going to the youtube site). One way that I've gotten around this problem is to download a free program called RealPlayer. Once you have installed the software, you can go to the youtube site and actually download the video with the realplayer extension. After you open up the program, you can then change the file extensions to *.wmv, *.mpeg, or *.avi depending on your machine and how you'll use it. This process does take more planning, but it is one way to use great educational videos in the classroom!
ReplyDeleteIt was blocked in my district until last year. We went to the board and explained why it would be useful and they, fortunately, agreed. I wish I had known about using RealPlayer!
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