So what exactly is MediaShare? Well on the Quick Start Guide, Discovery Education describes it as “a web-based content sharing system that enables educators to utilize the best resources through uploading, sharing, managing, and distributing user-created or
licensed, digital content.” But what does that mean? Well basically, as a member of the Discovery Educator Network you have the ability to find great educational media resources (PowerPoints, Photo Stories, Podcasts, Vodcasts, lessons, etc) to use in your classroom with your own students. Since DEN members can be found across the U.S. (and the world) there is a vast amount of wonderful resources available to you simply for being a member of the DEN. You can even subscribe to an RSS feed so you’ll know as soon as new resources are updated!
But that’s only HALF of the benefit of MediaShare. As a DEN member you can upload your own resources to share with others. This means you can upload those medias resources that you have created for your own educational purposes. The great part about this is that when you share these resources DE provides you with a link and embed code so you can share that resource with others on your blog, wiki, Twitter/Plurk account, website, or a large number of other online sources. (Be sure you’re not posting videos, images, or other content that you downloaded from DE streaming, Science, or Health to public facing internet sites though.) Why is this such a big deal? Because media resources can often take up a lot of your storage space, but a link or embedded resource doesn’t take up nearly as much space.
So how do you access MediaShare? As a member of the DEN simply log on to www.discoveryeducation.com, click DEN, and select Educator Resources. From there you can Search for resources that have been uploaded by others or share your own resources by clicking Upload to the right side of the screen.
Need more help? Click here to download the MediaShare Quick Start Guide