I am fortunate enough to teach in a school that provides both Discovery Education Streaming and Safari Montage for streaming video. They both contain good content (from different media companies), but there are a few differences. Here is a rundown of those differences (presented in alphabetical order):
Discovery Education Streaming (formerly United Streaming)
- Accessible anywhere via internet (on-site server available at extra cost)
- Individual teacher signup required
- Streaming video, audio, sound effect, articles, quizzes, events, lesson plans, images, clip art, etc
- 4,000+ video titles
- All content downloadable, some editable
- Content can be made available with password protection (i.e. within Blackboard)
- Some content grainy, lower quality video
- Professional Development component through Discovery Education and the Discovery Educator Network (DEN) including webinars, online training, regional support, and much more
- Content: Discovery & Discovery Education Titles (including Planet Earth), Suburst, AIMS Multimedia, Weston Woods, and many others
- On-site server only = no outside access, but reliable intranet connection
- No individual teacher signup necessary
- Streaming video only
- 1,000+ video titles
- Broadcast quality video
- Content: WGBH/PBS, Schlesinger Media, National Geographic, Sesame Street, BBC, A&E, Disney Education, etc.
Summary
The content from each provider is quite different, so educators of different levels and content areas might prefer one service over another (for instance, DE Streaming has some exceptional content for high school science, and Safari Montage carries Bill Nye the Science Guy, which might be better for elementary and middle school science).
The School Library Journal Recently compared the two services, giving DE Streaming an A- and Safari Montage an A+. Safari Montage earned the ‘plus’ distinction due to the higher quality of their videos.
While DE Streaming quality isn’t as good as Safari, DE Streaming offers more for students and teachers. DE Streaming provides a slew of professional development opportunities, more media options and their content is accessible anywhere and is downloadable. This allows DE Streaming content to be more flexible. Some titles are even editable, so educators and students can manipulate them in multimedia presentations.
More on DE Streaming and Safari Montage:
- STREAMING VIDEO OFFERS EASE AND FLEXIBILITY from the School Library Journal
- Safari Montage from techLEARNING
- Safari Montage from eSchool News
- Skills Needed to Survive
- Independent evaluations of United Streaming: Virginia executive summary (PDF) & Los Angeles math evaluation (PDF)
- DE Streaming News
Tags: Discovery Education, Videos
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FYI… Safari can be accessed outside of the intranet at an additional cost. There are many other features that you are not listing for Safari as well as DE. Safari can also house teacher and student digital content as well (videos, images, flipcharts, etc)
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