Category Archives: Web Tools

Video-Sharing Network Showdown, Part 1

With the increased use and demand for video in distance learning and the popularity of video services such as YouTube, I wondered what role these video-sharing services could play in an educational environment. Often an institution may not provide internal video hosting or time requirements may not allow the instructor to go through the centralized service and still meet the needs of the class. In these cases, a video sharing service can provide the solution for hosting and sharing the videos.

Clearly YouTube is the most well known of the video hosting platforms—but is it the best for educational use? Several competitors are slowly gaining an increased audience and are attempting to differentiate themselves from YouTube by providing a better user experience and/or unique set of features such as subtitling or editing.

I want to compare the leading video-sharing networks from an instructor perspective and find which one site is best suited for use in an online classroom. The first step was to eliminate the sites that I didn’t think would fit into an educational setting and thus were not worth comparing.

Elimination Criteria

The following criteria were used to eliminate certain video-sharing sites from consideration:

Ad Networks: I eliminated Revver and other sites that were primarily ad networks that embed ads into the uploaded videos and provide no opt-out option.

Site Editorial Control: Sites that must approve content before it is posted were also eliminated from consideration. For example, VideoJug was eliminated because they maintain strict editorial control of all posted videos and will take down any video that does not meet its site requirements of a “How To” Video.

Cost: I will only evaluate free video sharing sites. I excluded pay sites and will not evaluate features that are only available to upgraded accounts.

Which Sites Will Be Compared?

After applying the elimination criteria, these are the sites that were chosen to participate in the showdown:

The Next Step

In my next post, the sites will be ranked from 1 to 14 (1 being worst, 14 being best) based on how well each one meets specific evaluation criteria. Important or crucial categories will be given a multiple to give them extra weight in the rankings. The cumulative scores will be tabulated and the site with the highest score will be declared the winner.

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Criteria for Evaluating Social Bookmarking Tools

What is social bookmarking?

If you’re not familiar with the term social bookmarking, it’s typically used to describe tools that allow users to save links to their favorite sites on a web server. This allows you to access these links from any computer with an Internet connection, making them easier to share than bookmarks or favorites saved on your computer’s hard drive. Social bookmarking tools also make it easier to categorize links and to find new sites that are recommended by people with similar interests. Some social bookmarking tools offer many additional features that are ideal for collaborative learning, allowing users to create groups and discussion forums and even call attention to specific webpage content with virtual “sticky notes” and highlights. However, many of these features have yet to be implemented in a refined and reliable way.

How do I evaluate social bookmarking tools?

That depends largely on how you plan to use social bookmarking. Here are the criteria I use when evaluating different tools based on my needs and what I believe faculty will value:

1) Ease of Use: Do existing tags automatically show up when you start tagging a new bookmark? How many clicks or screens does it take to rename or delete a tag? How many to edit a bookmark?

2) Groups Features: Can I create groups? Can the be private (by invite only)? I don’t want to just subscribe to other people’s stuff…I want a topic-specific group that shows me just the links my groupmates have posted.

3) Page Annotation: Can students make notes right on the webpage? Can they highlight content and make virtual sticky notes or comments on specific regions or bits of content?

4) Page Caching: Will the tool reliably save an archived copy of the text of the page? What about images, video, audio, and Flash? Does the archived copy still reference the live site in order for the media to be visible? (I tried archiving a page in Furl that had Flash content, and the archive duplicated the Flash object so I had two of them stacked on the same page. Furl also seems to look for any media content on the live site, so I’m assuming the archived copy won’t display most or some of the media if the live site goes away.)

5) Support: How supportive are the developers and the user base? If I post a message in the forum, how long does it take for someone to get back to me? How helpful are the FAQs and documentation? (Are there FAQs, for that matter?)

6) Popularity and Longevity: How popular is the tool? This is more important if you’re interested in using the tool to get recommendations from other users. It’s also helpful if you’re concerned that the tool might disappear one day.

7) Export Options: Can I get my bookmarks out of the tool in a standard format like HTML? I think all the tools I’ve tried allow this, but it’s still a good thing to check on before you invest a lot of time customizing stuff in one tool.

8) Multi-tool Bookmarking: Can I bookmark a site in the tool and simultaneously send the bookmark to my browser’s bookmarks or favorites folder and other social bookmarking tools (e.g., de.licio.us, furl, etc.)?

What’s next?

In my next post, I’ll talk about some of the social bookmarking tools I’ve tried and offer recommendations for anyone looking for a better way to save, manage and share their favorite sites.