Video Blog

1. Video Blog Using a Video Blog in Your Classroom

2. What is a video blog? • A video blog, or vlog, is a collection of videos – your own or your favorites – posted on a web site. • It's easy to create a free video blog, and it's a great way to reach out to audiences and show off your work. • A video blog is the same thing as a blog – except that you use video material in your blog.

3. How can you use video blogs in your classroom? • It is a creative way to share information and create a community in your classroom and school. • You can engage your learners in a class project (almost like a class newspaper). You don’t need to be technically savvy—a basic video recording device and a computer with free editing software and an internet connection are all you need. • Delegate recording and editing duties to students, that way they will learn new skills.

4. What are some video ideas? • School events: Assemblies, guest speakers, school plays and sports, etc. • Student projects: Let students create videos as special projects or to demonstrate their mastery of a concept, then post the videos on the vlog to show off the learning that’s going on in your classroom. • Important lessons: If you’re teaching a key concept that students may not grasp immediately, consider recording the lesson and posting it on the vlog. This way, students can go back and re-watch it later on to clarify anything they missed.

5. More ideas… • Teaching videos: There are many educational videos available online, which can be used to supplement lesson plans. Add the videos to the vlog so students can easily find them and watch them. • Interviews: Have learners interview different people in your school. The interview could be about being an adult learner, about being a parent or about something they have accomplished lately. Post it on your Vlog.

6. More ideas… • Make a webcast series: Webcast is a web video recorded in the style of a newscast. Do a weekly news show about your community and post it to your class Vlog. • Make a video podcast series: Choose a subject and make some video podcasts (just a series of videos). They can be about your community, about the environment, about life in the North, about Elders, interviews with prominent people in town, etc.

7. Take the 12 Day Vlog Challenge

8. Where can I host the Vlog? • There are many free web services that will host your video blog and simplify the vlogging process. You can set up a channel on YouTube if you just want to share video. If you want to have a true blog and include video, pictures and text, you can use Blogger or Wordpress.

9. How do I keep my Vlog interesting? • You’ll probably be able to generate a lot of interest from your audience at first, but if you don’t add new content regularly people will lose interest and stop checking in. So, before you go live with your video blog, make sure you have enough content to keep it going for a little while. •  Post something at least every two days. It doesn’t have to be a video, it could be photos, or information.

10. How do I upload my videos? • You can set up a free blog using Blogger or Wordpress. These free blog host sites allow you to upload video, photos, PowerPoint, etc. • You can also upload your videos to YouTube if you just want to share video. You will need to set up an account to get your own channel on YouTube.

11. What else can I do with a Vlog? • You can video curate! • Video curation is the easiest way to put together a great video blog. All you have to do is find videos that other people have produced that will be of interest to your audience, and post them on your vlog. All you have to do is post the link!

12. How do I promote my Vlog? • If you are doing a school or classroom Vlog – all you need to do is tell everyone about it. Make an announcement, send home flyers, send out mass emails, etc. • Send out an email to everyone you know. Tell them to check out your new Vlog. • You can also promote your Vlog through aggregation sites and search engine optimization.

13. How do I keep the Vlog up? • To have a successful video blog you'll need to continuously create and update your content. • Get your students to help. • If you have 15 students in your class, ask them to post to the Vlog one time per month. This will keep the Vlog current and fresh. Make sure you have restrictions on what can be posted or a list of topics for the Vlog.

14. What are some interesting Vlogs to view? • Steve Garfield's Video Blog • Crash Test Kitchen http://www.crashtestkitchen.com/ • Scratch Video http://crule.typepad.com/ • A Galaxie Far Far Away http://www.tommyfoster.com/galaxie/ • Ryan Edit http://ryanedit.blogspot.com/

15. Top Ten Websites to Create Free Blogs • Blogger: Blogger is one of the most popular blog websites and now it is owned by Google. Blogger is a great starting site to get to know blogging and its user dashboard is very user friendly. • WordPress: WordPress is another major blog website besides blogger. With its own blogging platform, you can easily choose your favorite theme and blog layout. • Livejournal: Livejournal is not only a great blogging website but also a social networking website where you can search people by interests and school and participate in community discussions.

16. Top Ten continued… • Blog.com: Blog.com offers free blog hosting with unlimited bandwidth for free members. • Tumblr: Tumblr is a micro-blogging website where users can post text, images, videos, and more to their tumblelog. • Blogsome: Another blog website offering free web hosting for blogs. Blogsome is powered by Wordpress.

17. Top Ten continued… • Open Diary: Offers unlimited storage and posts, low cost subscription rates for advanced features. • Blogetery: Blogetery is a blog website that offers you payment to write blogs. You will get 90% of the profit. • Blogster: Blogster offers free blogs as well as free image hosting. • Weebly.com: Weebly is one of TIME’s 50 Best Websites, which  has an easy, drag & drop interface to create your own website.

18. How do I set up a blog? Over the next several pages we have outlined several websites and tutorials that will help you set up a blog. • How to Create a Blog on Blogger This is a great tutorial on YouTube on how to get started on a blog using Blogger. It goes through all the steps in under 4 minutes.

19. 2. Create Blog: The 5 Minute Blog Again this is an excellent tutorial on YouTube on setting up a Blogger account. This tutorial gets folks up and running with their own blog in minutes using the Blogger site. It starts from clicking "Register" and takes you through adding pictures, editing the layout, etc.

20. 3. How to Build a Free Website with Weebly • This is a great tutorial on how to set up your own website (very similar to a blog). The tutorial walks you through how to register and then set up different pages on the website all under 10 minutes. Definitely worth viewing!

21. 4. Become a Blogger • This website has several tutorials on setting up a blog using Wordpress. It goes through the process step-by-step and is very easy to follow. When you get on the homepage look to the right hand side for these free video tutorials.