EDAD660 (2010)

Reeham brought up a great question at the end of class – is it possible to embed “secure” videos on your blog that only certain individuals can access?  After a little research it looks as though the answer is “yes!”  Here’s an example – just click the play button in the middle of the video below to bring up the password dialog box.  The password is “cairo2010″.

Here’s how you can try this yourself:

1. Obtain a free account on Vimeo, video sharing website that is simliar to Youtube.
2. Once you have signed up and registered, click on the ‘Upload a video’ link.
3. Click ‘choose a file to upload’
4. Find the file on your computer and click ‘Select’
5. Provide information about the video and click the Save button
6. Next, click the ‘Go to Video’ button
7. On this page click on the ‘Settings’ icon – it looks like a gear and is located on the top right side of the page
8. Click on the Privacy tab on the left side of the screen
9. Select that you would like this video to be Password protected.  Type in a password in the blank that appears.
10. Click the ‘Go to Video’ button
11. At the top-right side of the video itself there should be an embed link – click on this to copy the HTML code necessary to embed this video.
12. Open up your blog and embed the video as you would any other embeddable widget.

Over the last few years the web has seen a huge increase in the number of streaming video sites that are available to the public.  Many of these sites allow the average Internet user the ability to freely upload their own content and share it with the rest of the world.  Here’s a short list of sites that provide the ability to “embed” videos so that they can be used on your own site:

1. Youtube (http://www.youtube.com/): The largest video repository on the Internet, Youtube allows anyone the ability to watch millions of videos from around the world.  In addition, visitors with a Google identity can log in to upload videos, maintain playlists and comment on videos uploaded by other community members.
2. Teachertube (http://www.teachertube.com/): Similar to Youtube, Teachertube boasts “teacher friendly” videos that focus on delivering educational content that are designed to be used in the classroom.
3. Watch Know (http://www.watchknow.org): Watch Know is a “meta search” engine for video sites that brings together and organizes the best educational videos from across the web.
4. Academic Earth (http://www.academicearth.org/): Focusing mostly on university produced lectures, Academic Earth boasts an impressive number of freely available talks on a wide range of subjects.
5. TED (http://www.ted.com/): TED, which stands for “Technology, Entertainment and Design,” maintains a fascinating library of technology related videos that can be freely embedded on your blog.
6. Hulu (http://www.hulu.com/): Hulu focuses mostly on television shows and commercially produced video content.  Unfortunately Hulu is not generally available from outside the United States due to copyright restrictions.