No YouTube access at school? No problem!

Many schools have filters that block access to YouTube and other nifty video sharing sites.  My school district falls into this category.  There are so many wonderful educational videos on YouTube and it is a shame that the site is blocked in my district, however it is somewhate understandable. Even though YouTube is monitored for appropriate videos, many times some videos slip through the cracks and user comments are often less than appropriate for school use.

Teacghers frequently approach me and ask, “Can I save videos I find on YouTube?”  The answer is “Yes you can!”  Over the years there have been several software solutions that allow a user to capture and download a video from YouTube or other similar video sharing websites.  The problem with these apps is that they weren’t always very straightforward to use, they were unreliable, or were paid software.

Thanks to a free Firefox add-on named Download Helper, the task of downloading and converting online videos is simple!

First, you should know that this add-on does not bypass web filters or anything of the sort.  The software is to be utilized by teachers while at home.  You can download a video, save it to a USB drive or portable hard drive, and copy it to your school computer.

Second, because the application is made to work with Firefox, you MUST use the Firefox browser to find the videos you would like to download.  This shouldn’t be a deal breaker for most users – the functionality of Download Helper is slick and works!

Once you download and install the add-on and install it within Firefox, simply go to any website with a video and click the icon for a pull-down menu of the available videos.  Happy downloading!

Check out the video showing how to install and use the add-on…

[podcast format=”video”]http://www.charleslaux.com/stringedtech_podcast/firefoxvideodownloader.mov[/podcast]