Really getting started (again) in Youtube

I've had an account in youtube since the fall, when I uploaded a video tutorial about using the Picassa program, but since then, my account hasn't really had anything added to it.

This semester was different. Because I'm teaching an introduction to film class, I need to be able to show clips of older movies to my students, and as it turns out, Youtube has all of these things. Since Youtube has the ability to create "playlists," I can save youtube videos in whatever playlist I need for the next class period.

I honestly hadn't really used it or wanted to use it for uploading videos since fall, but now I've started having ideas on how to put together youtube tutorial videos to help my students next semester with the transition from Blackboard to Moodle at my school. I have a guniea pig class now, and I was able to create a video using Camstudio that shows them how to get rid of some of the extra clutter in the class (something that I'm tired of answering in emails)

My Camstudio has been acting up, so where I wanted to play around with recording and uploading some more videos like my first, I had to settle for using my flipcam a little more. Everytime I use the flipcam, I realize how easy it is to use and wonder why I don't use it more. I just played around with using it on my cats and uploaded those videos. Not really educational, but a nice stress relief (especially my orange cat who purrs 24/7 - the camera did a nice job of picking this up).

My experiences with uploading videos on youtube have been pretty hit or miss. I was able to upload my two kitty videos with no problems in under 5 minutes, but the other videos I have up there have taken at least an hour a piece and sometimes more since I have often gotten to the 99% mark only to be told there was an error. I'm not sure what causes the difference unless it's the file types and the content, but it can be pretty frustrating to be hanging out by this computer waiting for my files to upload (I use my desktop since it is wired directly into the internet).

I'm not sure I'm ever going to be one of those people that will be comfortable having a vlog or really filming myself too much, but I don't mind using it to achieve specific objectives, i.e. showing a class how to do something since I don't see the students in person.