Download YouTube Vids 4 School in4 Easy Steps and YAY Math!

Problem: Teacher Wants to Show a YouTube Video
A few days ago one of my awesome 7th grade math teachers came to me in the library with her laptop & a problem. She had downloaded a kick butt Math video (above) from YouTube but couldn't get it to work. (she had downloaded it as .html) Could I help? Sure!

Solution! KeepVid.com
Now...of course YouTube is blocked in my school (yeah, I'm fighting that, too! UPDATE: I won! OR at least for teachers) so being the daring librarian (and a contrarian!) I brought out my Verizon Fascinate droid smart phone and turned on my 3G Hotspot and Voila! Download the comic in many sizes.

In 4 Easy Steps: I Found the video, copied the video URL, went to KeepVid.com, pasted it and clicked Download. Another Voila! Given a choice of video formats I told her that the best one for us was MP4 and saved it to my desktop (HINT: .FLV is good when you want to embed it to a PREZI!) then...she pulled out her 3G flashdrive and within a few min she had her cool video to show in class. (click the comic tutorial on left for a variety of sizes - creative commons - feel free to take, use, & share!) 
Do Heed my WARNING! 


YAY Math!
By the way.....when I said kick butt video I meant it!... Started by uber math guy, Robert Ahdoot - a high school teacher in California, he creates fun videos about Math that make even ME understand it! And he wears costumes, too! And dances, adopts silly accents, and basically celebrates teaching, Math, his students, & learning! (Oh, and he's cute to boot! - pity with my goyish punim I'm such redheaded shiksa....le sigh!) Ahem!... Moving on!

Check out his YAY Math website and YouTube Channel and consider donating a couple bucks for "Video production, web hosting, costumes, and equipment"
.........I did! See?

YAY Math has uploaded 59 videos and strives "is the first site ever to have math videos filmed in a LIVE classroom. We are boldly redefining how people perform better in math. Welcome to the movement!"

So YAY Math!
YAY KeepVid!
YAY Cool Math Teachers!
YAY Contrarians!

Be daring and download YouTube videos easily to your HD to show in class and share this blog with the "locked net monster" in your district to show why it should be UN blocked for teachers!

Have YouTube? Love YouTube? Why not try: 12 Fun Hacks for Getting More Out of YouTube

Also...a great hint from a couple dear PLN Tweeps of mine!...
TiffanyE @gwynethjones A trick to try at school: add twitter gadget to your iGoogle page - this has worked for others who have twitter.com blocked ;)

jmalphy @gwynethjones This works for me at school!

See that Locked Net Monster? We're fighting you!


Photo from Scott McLeod

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Ps. I also added a donation button to my blog today!

Matthew Winner is an amazingly talented elementary teacher-librarian friend of mine in my district...and the only one who would take the presidency of our HCASL (our local media association) from me after 8 long years (heh heh!) and he's hopefully going to be part of our Learning Tools Family Feud at ISTE11! He and his wife just had a baby (they also have a super cute furry baby!) so money is tight for going to conferences...please consider donating a couple bucks to help send him to his first ISTE! Thank you!