NYNP blog post 12-2-09

Comparing three websites for free educational videos
There are so many websites with free instructional videos that I thought it would be useful to compare three that trainers may be able to use. (See my prior post "Resources for free university-quality educational materials" for some additional websites with free videos.) The sites below are well regarded, with many thousands of users, but each one is quite different from the other two.

Academic Earth (academicearth.org)
Academic Earth currently offers video courses from UC Berkeley, Harvard, MIT, Princeton, Stanford, UCLA, and Yale. The videos range in length from one minute clips of speeches to entire courses with twenty or more separate video lectures. The website's goal is to provide everyone on earth a user-friendly, one-stop location for accessing a world-class education. Videos feature leading academic scholars and can be explored by topic, school, instructor, thematic collections called "playlists," or by doing a search. The website's design is secondary to its function, so it's organized in a straightforward and intuitive way. Videos are not extremely high quality, but they have a professional feel.

TED: Ideas worth spreading (ted.com)
TED, which started out as a conference that brought together Technology, Entertainment, and Design, offers "riveting talks by remarkable people, free to the world." It has grown to include the topics of Business, Science, and Global Issues. Because of its origins, the website's design is much more sleek and cutting-edge than the other two sites. For example, while the videos can be explored by topic or by doing a search, they can also be explored by "newest," "most emailed this week," "most comments this week," "most favorited all-time," or by the following ratings: jaw-dropping, persuasive, courageous, ingenious, fascinating, inspiring, beautiful, funny, and informative. Most videos are longer than the average video online, starting around 15 minutes, as the talks, presentations, demonstrations, and performances go in-depth. The speakers include thought leaders and celebrities.

Teacher Tube (teachertube.com)
As you might guess, Teacher Tube appeals to a specific audience of educators. The website's goal is "to provide an online community for sharing instructional videos." Like YouTube, videos are contributed by members, and membership is free and open to anyone. Thus, the videos are not professionally filmed or edited, but rather homemade. They include videos of people talking directly into the camera, animated PowerPoint presentations, animations, staged skits, and even singing and dancing. The videos can be explored by doing a keyword search, or by categories that reflect the primary goal of creating a community: featured, recently added, most viewed, top rated, most discussed, most favorite, most linked, and most responded.