(You)Tube it Up!

At the last FUSS meeting, several faculty members expressed an interest in learning how to copy video from YouTube or DVDs for use in their classes. This blog post concerns copying videos from YouTube; a future post will discuss ripping DVDs.

Copying from YouTube
I"m going to demonstrate a very simple way to copy a video from YouTube to your computer using only an Internet browser and a service called SaveYouTube. Believe it or not, this method involves no special software and no copying/pasting of URLs! Simply follow the steps below:

  1. Locate the video you want to download on YouTube.
  2. In the address bar of your browser, simply add the word “save” after the “www” part of the address, like so:

    Browser Address bar showing YouTube Video Web address
    Browser Address bar showing YouTube Video Web address with Save added
  3. Doing this will take you to SaveYouTube. A pop-up will appear like the one below. It’s safe to press the “Allow” button. You can also check the checkbox to prevent this message from appearing in the future if you want.

    Applet Warning, it
  4. Once your video is ready, download one of the MP4 options (ignore the other FLV/3GP options). Be sure to save the file on your Desktop or somewhere you can easily find it!

    SaveYouTube window asking for download file-type
  5. Now you can close your Internet browser window. To insert the video into PowerPoint 2007/2010 on Windows or PowerPoint 2008/2011 (or Apple Keynote) on Apple OS X, go to Insert>Movie>Movie from File. If you are using PowerPoint, remember to keep your to your PowerPoint file (note that newer versions of PowerPoint do allow you to embed a movie file into the presentation file).

    You can also insert the video directly into your SmartSite classroom by choosing the resource link and then pressing the drop-down box next to the word "Add" and choosing "Upload Files" next to the folder in which you want to place your video. Then you can use it wherever you need to in your SmartSite classroom.And that"s all there is to it!

Copyright Issues
I’ll talk more about copyright in a future post, but you should be aware that most videos on video-sharing sites like YouTube are protected by Copyright law and are illegal to share. However, a limited amount of video is okay to use within an educational context under what’s considered a Fair Use exception.

A lot of this depends on how much of a video you are using and in what context, but showing a few minutes of a copyrighted work in a classroom setting is generally okay. There are other intellectual property issues involved when sharing a video in an online class, so it’s best to avoid doing so. I’ve shown you how to download/copy video in this post; be sure to use your best judgment when determining if it is okay to do so under a Fair Use exception.

There are also quite a few videos on YouTube with a Creative Commons license and these are okay to fully use either in a classroom or online. For more information on finding Creative Commons videos through YouTube, click here.

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