QUESTION: Can teachers band together to create a crowdsourced database of pop culture clips?

[Greg Williams]

What if there was a place (and maybe there already is?) where teachers not only could share movie/song clips and other pop culture pieces with one another, but also had these tagged and organized in a way like movieclips.com? Essentially it would be a database for teachers and students alike, and similar to the teaching channel each clip could be supplemented by a few suggested methods of implementation (such as discussion questions or activities). 

I have made a few crude mock ups (check out the English topic for the most concrete version of what I am talking about) of what I am talking about - but I really want to get your ideas and input about such a project. Is't possible?

[Tony O'seland]

I run the Veterans War Archive Project for Northeastern State University at Tahlequah, OK. and the main problems I have run into start with funding, then progress to funding, and carry forward on who has ultimate control over the situation.  I've offered the IT department the challenge to write the searchable database, front page, and query engine but so far no one has taken up the gauntlet.  It'd make an excellent project for a grad student with database expertise.  Finding a place to host and store the information can be problematic if there are legal issues on privacy, but your concept sounds outside that area.  I'm not a grant writer but you might try your state arts council, the NEA (they need to do something with our money aside from complain), or other teacher organizations.  I'll keep an ear open and if I hear of anything I'll send the data along.

[Greg Williams]

Thanks Tony, your insights are valuable to me. I have considered pursuing this idea as a Master's project in instructional design - but like you said it would be hard with out the needed technical know-how. I am wondering if I could hurdle the copyright barrier, could I make this site using embedded videos? That way I would never actually need to host the clips themselves, and it would be easier for teachers (and students?) to share clips with one another . . .

Keep me posted on what you find. 

[Tony O'seland]

I like the embedded idea.  If you could get a web page set up like a photo album, (I'd kidnap the formatting from YouTube) that would allow instructors to submit links and have them show up categorized, that would be sweet.  Do you do any HTML work?  Dreamweaver and several of the other programs have templates for such things.

[Greg Williams]

Yes - that is sort of what I have been playing around with on my little "beta site" using Google Sites. I have been learning Adobe Creative Suite and haven't made it to Dreamweaver quite yet, and my HTML knowledge is pretty much zero. I want to learn though!

[Jeana Rock]

I really like this idea. I have used many clips in my teaching, especially ones that demonstrate cinematic techniques. I have a PowerPoint presentation with about 150 slides teaching the cinematic concepts. It is heavy with model clips. I would love to share this with other teachers, but uploading it somewhere is the problem.