Kaltura: web 2.0 collaborative video or “YouTube gone Wikipedia”

Image via Wikipedia

This is something I’ve been longing to post about and the time has come. I’m indebted to Juanan, from DiarioLinux, who let me know that web-based collaborative video projects are now possible with Kaltura.

Quote from Kaltura About Us:

Kaltura’s technology is implemented in the kaltura.com portal, available to all for free; and is also licensed to other websites, social networks, and brands for their customized and integrated use. Together, Kaltura’s partners comprise the Kaltura Global Network, the world’s largest network of re-mixable, shared and legal rich-media content, and creators.

Kaltura is a blended approach to different web 2.0 philosophies:

rich media content + rip, mix and burn + community + peer production + web-based + mashup

What’s Kaltura? What can we do with Kaltura?:

• Kaltura.com is a collaborative video platform.
• Users are given the option to create a video from scratch or from an existing one. This can be done collaboratively -just like we can work collaboratively on a wiki page-. You can invite friends to add stuff to a video (this is something you can’t do with Animoto, for instance).Check the screenshots below.

• If you’re a blogger and want to embed videos in your posts, why not giving them the open|collaborative touch? There’s a Kaltura plugin for Wordpress with which you can upload or import videos, edit, remix them with Kaltura’s online video editor. Since it’s YouTube gone Wikipedia, Kaltura’s plugin is aimed at allowing readers and subscribers to add video and audio comments as well as to remix and edit the video you’ve uploaded. And what’s best, they won’t have to download anything at all, it’s all web-based and very user-friendly. As the blog’s administrator, you can select the type and style of collaboration you’re allowing. You can download the WP Kaltura Plugin here. Then, you’ll see the Kaltura add media icon on your post editor.

• I’ve played with the video editor and these are my first thoughts:

1. It might be a system hog, you need a good graphic card + plenty of RAM (and keep fingers crossed in case Firefox 3 stalls again).
2. Keep keeping fingers crossed because it’s a web-based app, which also has its own disadvantages such as: what happens to your work if the connection breaks down? what if there’s a server breakdown? etc…Mayhem. Despair. You name it.
3. When working with the video editor: when you delete a frame from the storyboard, is there any way to get it back? or can you add more media? I haven’t found those options when I deleted a picture and wanted to restore it or insert a new one from my computer.
4. Limited palette of editing options.
5. My students are the owners of their own creations and that’s why they ought to choose the license they want for their work, is there any way to add CC licenses to your creations?
6. I recommend the non-tech savvy to watch their video tutorials.

I have already mentioned here that I’m involved in the MITUPV Exchange Project.The most important assignment of the project is the collaborative creation of a video in groups (2-5 students per group) they upload to the MITUPV online social network (MITUPV server, html site)…We’ve been considering the possibility of revamping the whole project to make it 2.0. I’ll definitely recommend and include Kaltura’s plugin, if possible (plus web 2.0 screenwriting webware such as Plotbot).

Cons: I think Kaltura’s editor isn’t yet ready for large video editing (my students produce videos ranging from 5 to 10 minutes and I don’t really think this is the suitable tool for a fast editing process). Nonetheless, I’ll definitely think Kaltura is suitable for shorter/smaller media projects or assignments, maybe for 2-3 min videos. I haven’t tried the option of working collaboratively on a joint video project, so I don’t really know if the tool goes smoothly or not, but I’ll give it a try.

I’d also consider this collaborative webware for lessons focussed on Digital Storytelling in the foreign language classroom.

More for educators:

• Kaltura has partnered with Wikipedia to bring embeddable collaborative video to the Wikimedia family.To start with, they’re checking and beta-testing the functionality of this project at WikiEducator (which doesn’t belong to Wikimedia).The WikiEducator collaborative video experiment can be accessed here.

An aside: They call themselves the ‘open source video platform’…but I’m not so sure about the open source component here. It might be based on OS but they haven’t yet released their code (like Wordpress, Moodle…), although I assume they will.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Kaltura Releases WordPress Integration App
• The Rise of The Video Bloggers: Kaltura Comes to WordPress

Compártelo! Share it!