SchoolTube [1] is a media-sharing website for students and teachers. It provides a safe search alternative to sites like the popular YouTube, Vimeo etc. thanks to a strict moderation process making contents appropriate for the school environment. You don't have to pay anything to view the contents and it is approved in schools across the US and around the world. There are a number of different categories such as animals and wildlife, history, careers, student clubs, which allow for easy searching through archived materials.
[1]There's a Lesson Plan area for teachers that features information for videographers of beginner, intermediate and advanced levels along with guidelines. Along with educational contents, SchoolTube is also used to generate contents [2] to:
- support schools publications like newsletter, yearbook etc.
- act as a PR tool to share school's accomplishments
- archive school events
There are three ways to interact with SchoolTube – 1) searching for and view material produced by other students 2) Comment on the video to get the conversation going and 3) creating a channel to share your videos with a wider audience.
The videos can also be shared with parents and friends by embedding SchoolTube's video player into websites and encouraging parents to view school news or clips from events they were not able to attend.
[1]
Sarah Cargill of Getting Smart posts a digital storytelling video [3] which “gives an idea of how widely available digital media tools – smart phones, light weight video cameras, tablets, web-based editing tools, etc. – are to students to demonstrate learning. Combined with a platform like SchoolTube, students become creators and curators of powerful digital storytelling artifacts”.
This Math Rap video “All I Do Is Solve [4]” by Westerville South High School (WSHS) in Westerville, Ohio has been a big hit on SchoolTube. It shows how learning in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) can be creative, fun, and entertaining for students incorporating more technology tools than calculators such as language, video, and editing tools.