Downloading and Converting YouTube Videos

Because of the various requests for help downloading videos from YouTube to view off-line on the computer, I’ve looked through a variety of ways to do it, especially for free, and it seems that most of the download/decode websites have stopped working with YouTube, maybe since Google bought it. Hmm. So what’s to be done?

Start with using the FireFox web browser, if you aren’t already using it. (You’re NOT using Explorer still, are you??)

• http://www.mozilla.com

Next, download the DownloadHelper plugin for FireFox:

• http://www.downloadhelper.net/

Install DownloadHelper and restart FireFox. Here’s a video to hep you use it:

The files are downloaded with the extension .flv — Flash Videos. You can view them with a FLV Player:

• http://www.martijndevisser.com/blog/flv-player/ (Windows only)

You can also use a converter, like the free MediaCoder, to turn the FLVs into a different format, like QuickTime or AVI.

• http://mediacoder.sourceforge.net/download.htm (Windows only)

If you have a Mac, you can add a free plug-in, Perian, to QuickTime Player, to allow it to play a variety of video codecs:

• http://perian.org/

If you have the free QuickTime Player, you can just play the .flv files, but if you have paid for QuickTime Pro, you will be able to save the .flv files as .mov (QuickTime) files with this upgrade.

If you don’t have QuickTime Pro, and want to convert the FLV files to QuickTime for free on a Mac, try iSquint:

• http://www.isquint.org/

You will be constantly prompted to purchase their other video product, VisualHub, but just say no.

Happy New Year!

December Nor’easter

We’re having quite a snowstorm here today!  I’ve already shoveled 8-10 inches out of the driveway.  Our dog, Luna, loves the snow, though.

Dec. 16, 2007 Nor’easter

TeacherTube

Here are a couple more of the great videos I’ve found on-line:

This is a great one about Web 2.0 at YouTube:

This is an entertaining talk about how education today can stifle creativity:

2020 Vision:

More about blogging in the classroom:

There’s also an education-centered video website, TeacherTube, but so far, I haven’t been able to embed videos from there in my WordPress blog. Can anyone help?

Photography

This is a picture I shot this summer with my new Nikon digital SLR camera. (Mme. Windsor and I are both avid photographers!) This is Franconia Notch, here in New Hampshire. See where this is on Google Maps. Until a few years ago, up on the mountain on the left, there was a rock formation that looked like a face. It was called “The Old Man of the Mountain,” and was a special symbol for our state, but one night, the rocks just crumbled and the face fell off the mountain. My family used to live farther north, and we used to drive through “The Notch” a lot, and we always used to try to see “The Old Man.” Sometimes you couldn’t because it was lost in the clouds, like on this day. I still think it’s very pretty!

These are some of my other pictures from this summer, if you’re interested!

Atomic Learning

AtomicLearning, an on-line video tutorial service, has some great help for using WordPress.  It does require a subscription to see more than the first video, but the “Web 2.0 Workshop” videos are all free. It’s done by Vicki Davis, a teacher in the USA who cofounded the Flat Classroom Project with Julie Lindsay, currently teaching in Bangladesh.  They are also involved in the Horizon Project, “a collaborative global project between classrooms in diverse geographical locations.”  

RSS feeds

How to keep track of new posts on blogs: You can find a transcript in English of what is said in this video at http://www.commoncraft.com/rss-video-transcript .  You can also view this video with subtitles in a variety of langauges, including French and Arabic at http://www.dotsub.com/films/inplainenglish/index.php