Last Friday, I had a great conversation with Jon Kolker, one of the developers behind Educational Videos, a new site designed to create a community for high-quality video content that lives up to its name. Inspired by well-established video hubs like Howcast, VideoJug and the ubiquitous YouTube, the site has a small but growing directory of handpicked videos on a variety of topics, embedded from external video sites like YouTube.
As it stands, I must stress that this is a very, very new directory with relatively few videos compared to similar resources. The developers hope to grow their directory to about 10,000 embedded videos before allowing users to select and submit their videos. At that point, they envision a full slate of social networking features, such as user-created lists, bookmarking, recommendations, and so on. They're already working on two exciting projects: quizzes on the content of videos, and producing a video series in the vein of Bill Nye the Science Guy (an idea I hope takes off).
My first impression of the site was admittedly skeptical: it seemed that there was a focus on non-academic how to videos on topics like make-up application and playing Texas Hold 'Em. Kolker assured me that their goal is to have a more academic focus as their directory grows, along with the projects mentioned above.
As I told him, any site providing more resources for teachers and parents is worth checking out. Here's two interesting videos I found on Educational Videos: