Following on from a training day in Birmingham yesterday, I promised the delegates I’d try and produce a summary post on some of the various ways to download videos from You Tube to use offline.
I have written about this before, and a list of all the posts on this blog that mention video can be found here.
The method I tend to use the most is this script which basically gives you a piece of code which you drag to your toolbar in Firefox as a button. When you click the button it puts a “download as mp4″ link on the YouTube page. Follow the instructions on the page. You will need to use the Firefox browser, which you can easily download for free here.
A different method is to use the ConvertTube website. You simply paste the URL (the web address) of the YouTube video you want to download, and it does the rest.
Similar sites are You Tube catcher, You Convert It and also Zamzar.com
There’s also a site called Kiss You Tube. If you find a YouTube video you want to download, simply edit the www.youtube.com/blah blah address and stick a “kiss” before the youtube bit. ie www.kissyoutube.com/blah blah. The instructions are on the Kiss You Tube site. Just add a kiss 
Sites such as You Tube use flash video (flv) format. This can be played directly on the page in Smart Notebook, as far as I know not yet in Promethean. You can download third party players that will play these files. If you have the choice of video format it is probably worth using a different format such as mp4 which can probably be played on something you already have on your computer without having to download anything else. You can then hyperlink to these files from your whiteboard software – they will then open up and play.
If you want to know how to insert a flv file into Smart Notebook, Jim Hollis has produced a great little guide here.
I’ve made a list of sites tagged with YouTube on Delicious. Some of the sites are downloaders, others are useful sites that may be of interest.
On the subject of sites for video resources – don’t forget to check out both Teachers TV and the BBC Learning Zone. Both of which have some very good teacher resources
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About Me
Danny Nicholson : Educator, Science teacher, ICT Consultant, PGCE lecturer, Author and Web2.0 / SMART Masters/ Interactive Whiteboard Trainer. Contact me for any training requests. 
Buy the book!
Hello!
I’m a young children’s author. My first book, Hazel’s Phantasmagoria, was published by Quercus in March. It was well reviewed, and has sold respectably, and I’ve just been commissioned to record a BBC audio book of it. Previous to writing it, I have worked as an actor in theatres like the Globe, the Birmingham Rep, and the Unicorn Children’s Theatre.
I’ve now read in 3o schools this year, from Blackburn to Guernsey. The point of the readings for me is a) to promote the book, but b) to spend as much time with children as possible, getting their honest response – as I am neither a parent nor a teacher. I hope the schools I’ve read at have been pleased with my work.
I have recently recorded a film of me reading two chapters of the book, in the style of the old BBC Jackanory shows. I’d really appreciate it if you could perhaps post it on your blog, so i could get some feedback from people who know what they’re talking about. The idea is to do something to bring the reading of childrens’ fiction to Youtube, and the digital world.
You can see the videos here -
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=bWZwq2fuRbc
or here
http://uk.youtube.com/user/leanderdeeny
and they’re also on my website – which also contains any information about me you might like to know -
http://www.leanderdeeny.com
Any advice or feedback would be hugely appreciated – I really hope that these might be of some use in encouraging children to read.
Obviously i am always looking for schools to look at – so do let me know if you know anyone who might be interested.
I hope this is the right way to contact you – I’m afraid I couldn’t work out how to email you from the site. Sorry to be a pain.
All the best,
Leander Deeny.
Thanks Leander, I’ll take a look and put something on my blog. I’ve added an email link to the About Me bit of the blog to make contacting me easier too!