Integrating Technology in the Foreign Language Classroom

These days many teachers are accessing authentic videos made by native speakers and shared online via free services such as YouTube and Google Video. Some videos found here may represent copyright issues. Others may contain objectionable material. So please be sure to use your common sense.

One potential problem that individual teachers might encounter is that many schools now block video sharing sites such as YouTube or Google Video to control bandwidth and to prevent potential student viewing of objectionable images. It is possible for a teacher to download one of these videos in FLV format, bring it into class using a USB flash (pen) drive, and play it on your computer using a special FLV video player.

Here are the steps:

1. Find your video on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/ or Google Video http://video.google.com/. The video will have an address (URL), for example, this is link to a shared video of the Eiffel tower http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTeyCYqPIdI and another of the running of the bulls in Pamplona http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qPk5xk7ea0. You'll need to copy this URL and use a web site that will help you download the video.

2. Go to one of the YouTube or Google Video download sites. There are many of these.

http://www.downloadyoutubevideos.com/
http://keepvid.com/
http://video.qooqle.jp/dl/
http://downthisvideo.com/

The web site will have a textbox where you will paste your YouTube video address. Remember that these look something like the one listed : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTeyCYqPIdI

Clicking a download button will begin the download process. Follow the directions and be sure to give the video a meaningful name and save it to a location where you will be able to find it later (perhaps under My Videos). The video needs to be saved on your computer or flash drive as a file with the flv extension (Flash Video Player). For example: eiffel.flv

Some sites preform both downloading and conversion:

http://vixy.net/

 

3. Once you have saved your video as a flv file, you need a special media player to play it on your computer. Here are links for several free FLV Players

http://www.martijndevisser.com/blog/article/flv-player-updated (PC)
http://www.wimpyplayer.com/products/wimpy_standalone_flv_player.html (for PC or Mac)
http://www.rivavx.com/index.php?id=422&L=3
http://mac.eltima.com/freeflashplayer.html (SWF and FLV for Mac)
http://mac.softpedia.com/get/Multimedia/FLV-Viewer.shtml (FLV Viewer for Mac)

Install the FLV Player software and play your downloaded YouTube video.

This site also has a converter (Reply Converter) to change flv format to other formats (AVI).
http://applian.com/flvplayer/index_martijn.php

Note that there is likely to be some loss of quality in the conversion process.

Another popular video conversion program is SUPER (Simplified Universal Player Encoder & Renderer).
http://www.erightsoft.com/SUPER.html

Digital Video Update: YouTube, Flash, High-Definition by Robert Godwin-Jones (Emerging Technologies column in Language Learning and Technology)