Adding a kick to YouTube

Have you ever wanted to download a YouTube video? Of course you have. Who hasn't? But, when you tried, you probably discovered it's just not as easy as you thought it would be.

Although you can usually count on the brainiacs at Google (which owns YouTube) to turn such a task into a breeze, in this case they simply don't, or won't. (I imagine they have their reasons, although it seems hypocritical to me that the world's biggest advocates of online sharing of information - and the world's biggest privacy disregarders - have concerns about protecting - of all things - YouTube videos.) Yes, there are several third-party tools to help you get-r-done, but I have yet to find one as convenient and straightforward as KickYouTube.

No software to download, no URL to remember or bookmark, no pop-up ads, no annoying icon blinking away on the top of your menu bar. This is work-around at its best. And all you have to do is remember one word: Kick.

Here's what you do:

• Go to YouTube.
• Open the page with the video you want to download.
• Add the word Kick in front of YouTube in the URL (so, for example, it reads http://www.kickyoutube.com/watch?v=k33DEEI-15c&feature=popular)
• Hit enter, and that gives you a new KickYouTube frame around the video (like the picture below).
• Select the type of file you want to create (options include AVI, MP4, HD and iPhone).
• Click the green Go button to the right, which changes to Down (I know, this is a little weird).
• Right click on the Down button and click "save target as ..." or "save link as ..."
  
• Give it a name and save it on your hard drive or external drive.
• Share and play.

It's a great way for anyone to save these videos, but it can be especially useful to teachers who maybe want to show an educational YouTube video (seriously, not all YouTube videos are sleazy and the weird - just, it seems, the most popular ones). Often, teachers can't access YouTube from their school computers. But with this tool they can download the video at home, save it to a jump drive and take it to school where they can do something that budget cuts and administrative roadblocks often prevent them from doing - use technology to help educate the masses.

Poetry in Motion

I really ought to do this more often.

Recently, I spent a couple hours with Sarah Rose Thomas and her students at Coleman (Wisconsin) High School, about 40 miles north of Green Bay, and it was one of those afternoons that reminds me so much why I love working with educators and students.

Sarah’s classroom was filled with students who want to learn and a teacher uniquely skilled to teach them the subject matter that she so loves: poetry. At one point, preparing to read a poem to her students, she confessed that she cried the last time she read it. It’s personal, and it’s powerful.

The students, too, talked about how poems – those they read as well as those they write – sometime deeply affect them, including a student who turned to poetry after her grandfather passed away.

I was so glad I brought along my handheld digital video camera, as Sarah and her students were more than willing to talk about a subject that means so much to them: their love of poetry. And I am so glad that today we are able to readily tell these stories in online video that can be watched by people anywhere any time.

Videos such as this provide a visual glimpse into what happens thousands of times over in public school classrooms throughout our state, and does it in a way that people can see … and feel … and experience.

Incredible teachers like Sarah are connecting with students and making huge impacts on their lives. Students are giving back to the teacher and to each other, as these classrooms become communities of learning, sharing and growing. See for yourself: