New Streaming Video for Schools

Over 90% of the bandwidth used at my school is accounted for by streaming video. There is no doubt that streaming video is a powerful learning tool, but there are also huge diversions available to students in this environment. So, it is with great interest that I followed the link to http://www.watchknow.org/ that I received in a recent ISTE email.

This site looks to deliver what I have been looking for for a long time - an organised way of getting access to some of the rich content on the likes of Youtube and Google Video without all the junk. I'll quote from the press release in the ISTE email ...

WIKIPEDIA CO-FOUNDER DESIGNS WIKI-STYLE DIRECTORY OF EDUCATIONAL VIDEOS FOR CHILDREN

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (Nov. 12, 2009) - Dr. Larry Sanger, co-founder of Wikipedia, has launched a new website designed to gather and organize educational videos for students ages 3 to 18.

The site, www.watchknow.org , launched in October and currently features more than 11,000 videos across 2,000 categories on subjects such as math, science and history. The nonprofit site features new software, specially developed for the site by Dr. Sanger, which allows wiki-style collaboration among users.

"Think of it as YouTube meets Wikipedia, filtering out everything but quality educational videos," says Dr. Sanger. "WatchKnow.org links together content from traditional sites, and also allows users of the site to improve the organization of the video categories, which makes finding the video you need much easier."

The site, which features videos from National Geographic, YouTube and Google Videos among others, took more than 18 months to develop and has been endorsed by educators from schools including Harvard, Stanford, Brigham Young and more. WatchKnow.org is designed to complement and enhance the traditional learning experience for students as they study concepts that are traditionally hard to learn."

So, I've created my account (free of course) and I look forward to both helping students and teachers explore it in the new year, and contributing to the community as well. WatchKnow.org is funded by the Community Foundation of Northwest Mississippi (CFNM), which has set the goal of offering more than 50,000 videos on the site by the end of 2010. The site offers tips for video searching, separate pages for students, parents and teachers, and a guide for contributors.