Dimitris Tzouris

I bet you watch a lot of video on the web - either for leisure or for work. Apart from streaming services I use at home, I usually watch a TED Talk when I have lunch at work and I usually include a video explainer in my training workshops. From what I’ve seen so far, I can quite safely assume that nearly all teachers show videos to their students almost daily. Talks, documentaries, animations, explainers and music are all in your quiver of professional EdTech tools. It is also safe to assume that many times you have wished you had more control over how YouTube and video on the web in general behaves, sparing you all those uncomfortable moments. Stop autoplay How many times have you felt embarrassed in front of your students or audience when a video started playing automatically? Remember looking anxiously for the tab with the little speaker icon, trying pause playback? Many websites use autoplay to draw you into their content. Some (like Facebook) allow you to change the ...

I recently received this email from Dropbox that reminded me about an upcoming change in their service. It starts like this: This is a reminder that your Public folder links will become inactive on March 15. On that date, your Public folder will become a standard Dropbox folder, and your files will remain safe in your account. If you want to share those files again, you’ll need to use shared links instead. Have you ever used your Dropbox Public folder to share and post things on the web? I have. I know it’s a lame way to host files on the web, but it was dead easy — plus, the existence of the Public folder helped you get organized and you could instantly know which files are out there, so deleting them was a no-no. I have personally used my Dropbox Public folder to host PDFs of conference programs and images. There are currently 14 items that I’ve linked somewhere — from blogs and social networking sites to email and IM. Well, on March 15 these links will be deactivated. The...