Be sure to look at the comments for more ideas!

This is less of a “The Best..” list and more of a retelling of my personal technology saga today. Many, if not most, readers of this blog probably know all of this already. I thought some might find it useful to hear. And I hope others can contribute their experience and knowledge in the comments section of this post.

I began the day with downloading a 60 MB video from a well-known author (it’s a surprise until Wednesday about who it’s from 🙂 ). I had originally planned to upload it to this blog, but after I tried doing it, I learned that Edublogs has a 20 MB limit for uploaded videos (I’ve embedded videos on this blog before, but have never uploaded one). So, I put out a call on Twitter and Google+ for advice on how to reduce its size (in the list later in this post, I’ll include a list of the responses). I’d encourage you to see my Google+ post and the comments people left to learn more about their suggestions and my experience with them (I found Format Factory to work easiest once I found this tutorial).

Among the many responses were people letting me know that Vimeo and YouTube allowed much larger uploads than what I had thought they did. For some reason, I had thought they had lower limits — I have always uploaded videos to YouTube from my Smartphone and never bothered to notice their file size.

During this time, I also heard from Sue Waters from Edublogs (does she ever sleep?) letting me know that even if I reduced the video file size, I would only be able to add a link to it on the blog. She also suggested I should go the route of uploading it to something like Vimeo, Teacher Tube, School Tube or YouTube, and then embedding it.

I ultimately ended up uploading it to YouTube which was, of course, easy. I tried uploading it to Vimeo but, ten hours later and it still says its converting and they’ll email me when it’s ready (actually, it finally uploaded fourteen hours later.  I do like the fact it seems to have more privacy options than YouTube, including allowing it to be seem publicly but not embedded elsewhere).

YouTube works fine for me because last year our School District decided to let teachers be able to access YouTube. But it does offer challenges for teachers whose school content filters block sites like YouTube, Vimeo, Teacher Tube, and School Tube.

I’m assuming teachers in that situation may still need to reduce the file size of their videos. But, after they reduce them, where can they show them on the Web that might be less likely to be blocked? Perhaps there is an easy answer to this question and I’m demonstrating — once again — my lack of technical knowledge.

Please share your responses in the comments section.