If a Picture can say a Thousand Words, How Does a Video Clip Compare?

Pictures get you thinking without words. Videos are auditory words but still can get you thinking. The images can conjure up any number of thoughts and are very powerful. These powerful learning tools/videos can be found on many servers including: YouTube, TeacherTube, SchoolTube, and SlideShare (sort of) just to name a few. Videos have so much more impact on the learning environment than any one teacher can provide - so why not use them? Dr. Joyce Valenza will even be incorporating them onto her wiki Video Pathfinder. She also makes suggestions as to how to access YouTube at school where it is blocked in many schools including mine. In the article When YouTube is Blocked, it offers solutions for access at school. Option 4 seems to work well; in the URL, you add the word kick between the www. and youtube.com. and voila, the same page comes up. I'll be using this trick at school and sharing it with my colleagues. Some questions to grapple with: Should I share the unblocking with students? What are the pros and cons if I do this? There is a reason YouTube has been blocked at the school level. Am I willing to be challenged on allowing access should problems arise? Am I enforcing a filter on intellectual freedom for the students if I don't? As I researched the accessibility such sites, I found an article Everybody Else Is Doing It! by Mary Ann Bell where she states "so many people...are up against considerable odds in their efforts to access Web 2.0 sites, I think it is an understatement to say that many educators have a lot of convincing to do" to allow for interaction on Web 2.0. We need to take a stand and band together to create change. Is this some indication that education is slow to change?