Scary people on YouTube--beware

I read a fantastic book about making educational videos.  I was already making them but Karen Costa's book encouraged me to take my videos to the next level.  She also showed how easy it is to use YouTube as a place to store all of these videos.

I had been using screencastomatic.com and my personal subscription will expire in December.  My college provided us with a group account that I'll start using.  I decided to moved my 105+ videos to YouTube instead of within screencastomatic.com.  

I've moved about 2/3 of the videos and decided to make the majority "private" and a few "public."  I linked 2 of them on my weekly announcements to my online sections yesterday.  I heard back from a student that the link wouldn't go through and said it was set as "private."  So, I reset it to "public" and then sent an announcement to the class with the link and an apology that I had it set incorrectly.  I did the same with the other section and I set all of my videos to "public."

This morning when I checked my email someone who isn't a student had commented on one of my videos and the comment said "sexygirls".  Yikes!  Not what I'm signing up for!

My son explained to me that "private" means no one can see your video but "unlisted" means my students can view my videos with the link I give them.  Public lets anyone in this crazy world view my videos.  I left a few as "public" that I really think students in whatever Spanish class could watch and learn from but the others are all set to "unlisted."  

Scary people need to stay away from educational videos.  I could preach for a good long time about how much I hate the porn industry and maybe I will another day.  As you're reading you're probably thinking the comment wasn't necessarily as big of a deal as I'm making it.  You're probably right but I feel how I feel.  I am a professional educator and a comment along those lines isn't appropriate.  I've learned a lesson here that if I'm going to make something public I have to be prepared that anyone in the public can see my video.  No thanks.  Lesson learned.

This is leaving me feeling scared and threatened.  The logical part of me knows this man isn't outside of my house, waiting to kidnap me and sell me into the sex trafficking industry, but my feelings  tell me I'm feeling sad and scared.  All I'm trying to do is teach and I'm working so hard to do a good job.  I HATE that someone out there watched my video and wrote something that made me feel objectified and disrespected.  I especially hate that my boys are growing up in this awful world.  

This is a reminder that as I delve into technology I need to be mindful that not everyone lives in the Pollyanna world I do.  I have to get some thicker skin and know what "unlisted" and "private" mean before I rashly click on settings.  The irony is that in her book she recommends not setting videos as "public" and I should have paid more attention.  Oh well.  Lesson learned loud and clear now. *sigh*

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