Teacher Tube--You Tube for teachers
It's show and tell for teachers. Modeled on YouTube, the popular video-sharing
site, Teacher Tube is a web site where teachers can upload their most inspired
moments in the classroom and share them with teachers around the world hunting
for new ideas for their own classes.
Started by a Texas school superintendent and his brother engineer in March
2007, Teacher Tube now has more than 54,000 videos, 220,000 regular users and is
averaging about 800,000 visitors to the site every month. Jason Smith, 39,
superintendent of Melissa ISD in rural Collin County said he and his brother
wanted to create a place for teachers to model their lessons, according to the
Dallas Morning News.
Among the most viewed videos currently on Teacher Tube are:
- "Fractions"--a rapping math teacher explains percentages and incomplete
fractions;
- "Classroom rules"--a police officer informs students of class rules on first
day of school
- "Be kind to your erasers"--an art teacher creates a puppet character to tell
her students to respect art supplies
- "The one semester of Spanish--love song"--a teacher gives a Spanish lesson
in a love song
Users comment on videos and can rate them from one to five apples.
Videos that incorporate songs, visual aids, and math and science tend to be
popular on the site, according to the founders. Teachers are sharing
instructional videos for kids, raps and jokes on the Web site; many teachers use
the videos in class. Though most school districts block access to sites such as
YouTube, they don't tend to block Teacher Tube.
Other similar social networking Web sites include School Tube, which is aimed
more at kids producing videos, and Curriki, where teachers share lesson plans.
SchoolWAX TV is another social networking site for teachers and students but all
videos are screened before they are posted on the site.
http://www.teachertube.com/
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