Move over YouTube! 

Hello, G. Drive (and Vimeo?)

    @LisaBerghoff/@MrKimDHS

Ok, today's title is a little bit of a hyperbole - YouTube still has a firm chokehold on the video streaming market. It is still the second most visited website on the planet (behind Google Search), and there are still over 1 billion collective video hours watched each day. But Google has made some changes to their Google Workspace for Education suite by establishing age-based restrictions to promote safer under-age usage. For example, Chrome has added defaults for safe search, incognito mode, guest mode, and the topic for today: Youtube Restrictions. Students (if using their district accounts) will no longer be able to:

• Create channels, playlists, stories, shorts, or upload videos
• Watch or create live streams, live chats, or personalized ads
• See or post comments
• Purchase channel memberships, merchandise, or movies/TV shows. 
• Full blog here

Perhaps this is a response to the political ramifications of society's reaction to Facebook's potentially insidious effects on adolescents. Maybe this is a step in the right direction in curtailing the major psychological effects that unfettered access to digital platforms like YouTube has had on our students. One thing is for sure, we can still find ways of utilizing the benefits of the free exchange of digital media in our classrooms without going back to CDs and flash drives. So let's take a step back and look at Google Drive.

Google Drive

Have there been very many apps or programs out there that have had as big of an impact on education as Google Drive? There are times where I think about how we take for granted the staggering amount utility and efficiency gained from Drive, and shudder at how teachers had to live and operate pre-internet. Ok so in lieu of Youtube, here are a few ways students can share videos via Google Drive:

1. Shared Folder Option:

One option is for the instructor (or student leader) to create a shared folder within drive. That student would then give access to the folder to all individuals that need to upload a video. That way each student can independently upload a video to the folder, whose content can be viewed all at once by the teacher. 

2. Individual Sharing Option:

The other simple option is for students to share the link to the video directly to the instructor. To get ahead of potential issues, students and staff must remember to change the sharing defaults from "Restricted" to "Township High School District 113" or even "Anyone with the link."

Vimeo

Another option for video sharing would be Vimeo. Vimeo is rather simple to use as it borrows a lot of its UI design from other intuitive file sharing systems. Upon entering your home page, you'll immediately be struck at how many options there are to upload a video. Click on any of the options titled, "New Video" or "Choose a file." Once a video is uploaded, while you don't have access to too many features on the free subscription, it can be good enough if your aim is merely to share video to outside viewers.

So do you have any other video sharing options? Or creative ways you use video in your curriculum? Comment below!