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/