Frequently Asked Questions

 

Basics

What is WatchKnow?

Look at the text box, to the right, in blue. See also our About page.

How do I get involved and contribute?

You can start working as a beta tester. Please do! We're an open project. See Participation for all questions about participation, and join here.

What is your goal with this website?

• To amass a huge collection of the best free, reusable, educational videos and other watchable media, from all across the Internet--and make all of it accessible from one spot online.
• To organize this content using a unique, collaboratively-edited directory (and search, of course).
• To encourage the creation of more great educational media. So we will be holding many contests with significant cash prizes.

We want to give kids an enormous, reliable, watchable resource where they can instantly get extra help on any topic they're studying.

See our Goal page for more.

But how is WatchKnow different from other educational video sites? Why is WatchKnow necessary?

Four things: WatchKnow (1) organizes videos (2) for students. We are (3) managed by education professionals but (4) are an open, collaborative community. We're set up to build the place kids will want to come to for extra help online.

1. We are focused on collecting rather than hosting materials. We do not want to build "yet another" educational resource collection, but instead an exhaustive directory of all the best educational, watchable media for children that we can find online.
2. Our content is aimed at students. Many educational video projects online, like SchoolTube or Edutopia, cover a lot of other material as well, like teacher education and lesson plans, and videos made by students. We're more focused.

3. And we are serious about this. Unlike YouTube and TeacherTube again, we are non-profit. We make an active management role for the relevant experts: teachers and others. They are not merely reviewers, they can actually take the lead in building the website.
4. The goal of organizing educational videos for kids is very ambitious. We think the most effective way to do this is to set up an open community. So that's what we are. We aren't just a database put together "in-house" or by a computer program. We're people working together.

Why do you have a Directory in outline form?

Have you noticed how difficult it is to find all the videos of a particular kind on websites like YouTube and TeacherTube? They have a great deal of content, but one must use their search engines and so know what one is searching for in advance, or use very inconsistent "related videos" links, or else skim through pages and pages of unrelated topics for just a few videos. A great deal of the educational content in these websites is effectively hidden. Worse, there are many websites with educational videos, and to find everything one might want to view, one could spend many hours looking.

We aim to solve this findability problem by creating single, central directory, tying every video to a detailed, ever-expanding outline, and allowing volunteers to come together to maintain and expand the outline as necessary.

So prize money will be available for making and collecting educational videos--how will that work?

The retired Memphis millionaire who is funding this project also wants to award many cash prizes, over a period of many years, to people who make the best educational videos, and also to those who collect the best videos that are already online.

As to amounts, those will be vary. We might have many small contests with prizes of $100, for example, along with larger contests with larger prizes. Our very first "pre-launch" contest was conducted via YouTube and had a $500 prize.

Contest participation will be limited to U.S. residents to begin with. Administering an international contest is extremely hard and not in our capabilities...yet. But we're looking into it.

 

Project policies

What kind of videos (and other media) are you trying to collect?

We hope to collect videos (and other watchable media) that:

• Are relatively brief.
• Teach concepts to kids. Not ads, talent shows, personal greetings, etc., unless they have significant educational content.
• Were made for school kids, approximately age 3-18. Not college-level material.
• Were made for school kids, not by them--unless they are so high-quality that they are exemplary for other kids to learn from.
• Are of general interest, not merely of interest to a particular class.  Other websites are available to host classroom-specific content.

Go here for more details.

Teachers and parents are rightly concerned about credibility of information online. How will we help ensure the credibility of the videos on WatchKnow?

Concerns about credibility are understandable in a very open project--one in which everyone will be able to contribute to the database.

We have a Media Review Panel, made up of teachers and educational video experts, whose ratings count for more than the average contributor. They can delete abusive videos, inappropriate for children. Anyone can flag any videos or comments on the website as inappropriate.

Your rating will also count for more if you register under your real name. Your rating will count for less if you haven't confirmed your real name, and for less still (but for something) if you don't log in at all.

Finally, we'll put the highest-rated videos first and probably automatically delete videos that are rated below a number yet to be determined. We're confident that this rating system will establish our credibility while keeping the project maximally open and dynamic.

Is WatchKnow family-friendly?

Yes--since it is made for kids, it had better be. This is why we moderate anonymous submissions, have a few dozen teachers on board as community moderators, allow users to flag inappropriate submissions and comments, and have a zero-tolerance policy toward things like pornography, graphic violence, and profanity.

Under what license will the videos and other watchable media be available?

That will depend on the the creator of the media.

We require that all submissions to WatchKnow contests be made available under a Creative Commons Sharealike-Attribution license.  This allows anyone to reproduce and "mix and match" videos and add value.

Proprietary material will be available on WatchKnow only with the explicit or tacit consent of the copyright owner.

What, other than videos, might you mean by "watchable media"?

Embeddable Flash animations, games, and other software, such as those used on Starfall, would be one example. For this purpose we support MyToons.com. Creatively designed embeddable slide shows are another. Here we support Slideboom.com. We will support other services if there is a demand for them.

Is it okay to embed videos here that are on other websites like YouTube or do I have to come up with my own original videos?

Yes, absolutely. In fact, collecting all those educational videos here is part of the point of the website. This is also true of contest entries--videos created before WatchKnow came into existence will be able to win prizes here. We want to encourage people to post all their older educational videos here. Of course, we do want people to make lots of new videos, and we might have some contests that are open only to brand new videos.

Is it better to download videos from other sites like YouTube and then upload them here?

Sorry, there's a misunderstanding here. You can't upload videos to WatchKnow. You can only embed them here. So the procedure is to upload them to YouTube, TeacherTube, or another service we support, and then embed them here. See Participation for more.

I don't really understand the idea of "Fair Use"--am I allowed to include pictures or music in my own videos that I've found on the Web?

Essentially, we assume that if a video appears on another service (that we support), then it constitutes Fair Use. So as long as you work within the guidelines of the services that we support, you should be fine. We will make one exception, which is actually required by law: if the copyright owner of a work has made it clear that they don't wish it used on, for example, YouTube, we will remove our link to the YouTube copy even before YouTube removes its own copy.

How can I download your videos if I want to use them offline?

Sorry, you can't do this in most cases, or not unless the services we support allows this. You might be able to dig up some software that will capture a video that is streamed through YouTube, but we don't officially condone this.

Who will be able to submit and rate videos and other media?

Anyone. Submissions by those who have not logged in will be moderated. Ratings by anonymous users will count for something, but for less; we will have at most one rating per IP address in any case.

Aren't you concerned about people "gaming the system" in the contests?

We're properly concerned. We are aware of the challenges, and we believe our contests will be fair. We have a variety of sophisticated safeguards in place to make this very difficult. The amount of "damage" they can do anonymously or using unconfirmed accounts will be fairly small in any case.

Will I need to use my real name?

Not publicly, but you will have to reveal our identity to project management if you want to participate in a contest.

Since this is a contest with real stakes, we need to be sure who the video creators are. So, if you want to enter a contest, or want your ratings to count for more, you will need to confirm your identity.

We will not require that you use your real name publicly in any case, unless you are a member of the Video Review Panel.

Will the website eventually get overrun with advertising, the way TeacherTube has?

Not too likely. We're a non-profit and if the project is doing well, we will definitely have no shortage of donated money to support our operations.

 

Project status and next steps

Why haven't you launched for real yet?

Because we feel we need two tools in order for this project to be really successful. We will give you a button you can drag onto your browser toolbar; pressing the button when you're looking at a YouTube or TeacherTube (or other supported service) video will grab all the info and upload it automatically to WatchKnow. Also, we will give you the ability to drag and drop videos into categories, making categorization dead simple. When we have these tools in place, we should be ready to launch. Probably early 2009.

What will count as a successful beta project?

Note, the "beta project" will begin after we launch. Success will depend on three factors: (1) whether we get vigorous ongoing participation, particularly after our initial launch in the fall; (2) whether the winning videos are useful and pedagogically sound enough for us to continue to support ongoing contests; and (3) whether there is enough support from individuals and our partner organizations to continue to rate videos credibly.

How long would the full project take?

We have no idea at this point how long it might take to fill out the (surely) tens of thousands of topics that there might eventually be in English. It depends on several factors, but most of all it depends on how quickly we work. Probably several years at least. We will continue to accept new video submissions for a topic or category, even after a prize has been awarded for it. That aspect of the project might not have an "end" at all.  Of course, that is far in the future.

Do you have any ideas for what you might do once the project is well under way, if it is successful?

If the project is especially successful and the funding is available, we might recognize the very best of our educational media producers by asking them to create full course-length media series, which use specific textbooks and specific teaching styles.

We might also expand our contests into post-secondary educational content, but primary and secondary education are our priority.

Do you imagine that you will support others in their making use of WatchKnow as a platform for holding contests in other countries, for higher education, or for particular topics?

Yes, eventually. We hope we will be able to support a variety of organizations sponsoring contests through WatchKnow, that will encourage the creation of the widest variety of watchable educational media. But this is all in the future.

How do you feel about educational software and video companies uploading links to samples here on WatchKnow?

If the software is Web-based, safe, and embeddable, why not? Professionally-produced content is useful to kids too.

But such media could not be awarded contest money unless they were licensed using a Creative Commons license.