Using YouTube for Video Hosting

More and more COMET's sponsors are interested in using video as a primary format for delivering instruction. The merits of video for instruction can be debated. But that's not what this posting is about. Instead, here's a brief overview of COMET's reasons for adding a YouTube channel as one of our delivery platforms.

COMET's YouTube Channel

We've found YouTube to be an excellent platform for our needs. Some of the very useful features include:

• It's free!
• Huge potential audience: we're reaching an audience outside of our cozy little meteo/hydro world. 
• Closed captioning: It provides an automated transcription service that generates a closed captioning file. We can download that file, edit the few auto transcription mistakes, and then upload the edited file. This works really well and saves lots of time.
• Bandwidth and platform adjustments: YouTube serves up the proper video format and sizes based on the browser and connection speed of the user. Very cool! Here at COMET, we've spent a lot of time researching and developing ways to incorporate video in our modules hosted on MetEd to work across platforms and browsers. It's an ongoing struggle as browsers evolve and it costs us a lot of resources to keep up with this challenge. For content hosted on YouTube, it's nothing we have to worry about. 
• Analytics: We get excellent, up to date statistics on usage and demographics. 
• Comments and reviews: As with most sharing sites these days, you can allow your viewers to review and comment on your videos.
• Online video editing: It includes a very simple and effective online editing tool kit that allows you to dress up your video with transitions, captions and credits. For folks that don't have the resources or time for high-end software and editing, this basic editing capability provides enough functionality to polish simple video sequences. There's even a beta version of a tool available to add questions and URL overlays on your videos. The tool's availability comes and goes as the YourTube team updates it so you can't count on it yet. But it's a promising addition to their toolbox.
• Organization of videos: You can create Playlists on your channel for grouping videos into topic areas.  
• Embedding videos: The site provides embed coding so that you can include an embedded version of your videos on your website.
• Downloading videos: Using browser extensions, you can capture a copy of your own or anybody else's video for hosting locally or uploading into Moodle.

Check out COMET's channel and see what you think. You'll find a large collection of videos we've created from our modules. You'll also find a few that were specifically created for hosting on YouTube. My favorites in that category are a couple of videos that Bryan Guarente and Tsvet Ross-Lazarov, instructional designers at COMET, created using some very simple techniques (markers and paper!). Here's one of them:

Are you contemplating the use of videos for your training efforts? If so, please share your plans or current efforts in a comment.