YouTube vs. TeacherTube

It was interesting to listen to Leslie's You Tube in the district update. I had received an email from the tech person in our building the week before apologizing to we teachers. There was a bit of frustration in that email because apparently the someone in the district that was in the position to make that decision, made it without any advance notice to the schools. I find it fascinating how we teachers are encouraged to utilize technology and You Tube. Almost as soon as we embrace the technology its ripped out of our hands. Preparing for classes is tough enough without dealing with time consuming relearning of Teacher Tube. I began a search online for a tutorial for the golden rectangle and ratio to use in my Math class. I went to the Teacher Tube as instructed only to experience the slow and ineffeceint design of this internet site. I could find no videos on this topic. My home computer in seconds could hook me up to a video via YouTube that was exactly what I wanted. On Wednesday at the 1930 Como building we could access You Tube. Why? Why were the "highways" of fiber optics open to these classrooms at a district office buildings and not the schools themselves where we should be enhancing our classes with reliable information? I don't care about bandwidth. Why are we learning this if we can't use it?