VodPod

What is it?
The VodPod website uses phrases like:

• It’s your video network.
• Simply the best way to collect, share & watch videos.
• Let people watch your favorite videos from your favorite sites, right on your blog.

In short, it’s a personal repository for storing collections of online videos from popular video sites like YouTube, Google, Yahoo!, Daily Motion, MySpace, MetaCafe and others.

How does it work?
After creating an account, users have a default Pod and may add others. VodPod has a shortcut button to be added to browser toolbars. Adding items to your Pod only requires browsing video sites as you normally would and using the “Add to VodPod” button when needed. Using that button adds/embeds the video to your personal Pod.

What’s cool about it?

• Users can create different collections, each has their own URL; for example, I created this Web2.0 collection about 10 minutes.
• Each Pod has it’s own page where participants can add additional videos, rate and comment on existing videos, and message back and forth.
• Widgets. The VodPod player for a particular Pod can be embedded in another website which allows dynamic sharing of personally relevant videos. This is the widget for the aforementioned Web2.0 collection:

  
  

How can it be used in the classroom?
At the very least, VodPod provides a cleaner way to build and view a collection of online videos relevant to a specific topic. Rather than a list of simple links which branch out to a variety of pages, VodPod embeds all of the videos into the PodPage. This makes it easier to refer to and use online videos in a classroom (barring any bandwidth and access restrictions for YouTube imposed by your institution, of course ;-)

Also, VodPod has built in features to facilitate collaborative, community discussion regarding the videos. Learners can rate, comment on, and leave messages about the different videos. The possibilities for compare/contrast and critical review type activities are intriguing. A VodPod of two videos covering the same international event – one from Eurpoean news and one from US news source – could afford learners the opportunity to collaboratively discuss the two videos. Certainly, that’s a task possible with a bookmarking tool and a discussion board, but I do believe VodPod’s ease of use and available tools warrants its use.

Finally, Pod’ders can join a Pod and add additional videos. This creates opportunities for collaborative group work requiring the collection and critique of videos on a particular topic. Learners, in groups of four in a US History course, are asked to identify and collect images and videos focused on the end of World War II. VodPod provides the tool by which that collection can be accumulated and stored on the web, not to mention the other tools VodPod offers.

I first noticed VodPod via Alan Levine’s CogDogBlog.