Before my school board so wisely began to allow teachers access through the
Firewall, KeepVid was the only light in the veil of darkness of the Youtube-less
classroom. In the world we live in, watching entire VHSs or DVDs in a class is
seen as cumbersome, perfunctory and wasteful. YouTube often offers succinct,
edited versions of longer documentaries and movies. Why show all of “Saving
Private Ryan” and “Enemy at the Gates” when you can show just the scenes
depicting D-Day and the Battle of Stalingrad?
For those not as fortunate as I, access to YouTube on school
networks is usually a rarity. KeepVid is a simple internet-based application
that offers a free, innovative alternative to showing whole videos or using proxy
servers to bypass firewalls. In a manner similar to Pinterest, KeepVid allows
the user to take an online video and make it their own. Usually offering a
variety of file format for downloads (.mp4, .wmv, .avi, .etc), KeepVid allows
the organized and forward-thinking teacher to employ YouTube without accessing
YouTube.
My personal favorite aspect of KeepVid is the fact that with
a download file, I can use it at anytime, nearly anywhere. A big fan of Prezi and PowerPoint/Keynote, I loathe having to "ESC" out of the window to drag over a Google Chrome window to show a video. Saving a YouTube file as .mp4 and embedding it into the PowerPoint slide, however, allows me to seamlessly integrate a one- or two-minute video clip to reinforce my lecture.
While I have little to no need for this anymore since YouTube is available in my classroom, I highly recommend for anyone who is not as blessed by their almighty and benevolent school district.
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