This week, Skype, the voice and video chat application, announced Skype in the Classroom, a free service to help teachers connect their classrooms with other classrooms around the world. With 4800 teachers already signed up, teachers can find partner classrooms by searching geographically or by project. Project postings summarize the kind of interaction teachers are looking for, and can be filtered by age, language, subject or type.

Amazon Prime members got a nice bonus this week when Amazon announced free, unlimited video streaming for all Prime members without any additional fees. The Amazon streaming library currently consists of about 5000 movies and television episodes. In addition to streaming to your computer, Prime instant videos can also be seen on Roku, Google TV and a handful of other streaming devices.

When downloading Flash videos for offline viewing or transferring to an MP3 player, detailed how-to instructions vary, depending on where you are grabbing the video from, and what browser you are using. For example, Firefox users can use the Video Download Helper extension for most situations, and You Tube videos can usually be grabbed by the YouTube Downloader application. For details and examples, read Lifehacker’s Complete Guide to Ripping and Converting Video.

Speedcine is an index of about 13,000 full-length movies you can legally watch online. Some of the sites it links to offer free movies, such as Hulu and Fancast , while others charge, such as Amazon’s Video on Demand. While still in beta, Speedcine warns that not all movies are listed in the alphabetic index on the front page; some can only be found by title search.

New this year on the popular video site YouTube.com is the ability to delete comments you once posted and now regret. To remove such a comment, login to your YouTube account, go to the “Text Comments” section below the appropriate video, and click the “Remove” button next to your comment.

Ever wonder about downloading YouTube videos onto your iPod? The problem is that YouTube (and most other video sharing sites) uses a Flash format, and your iPod needs a QuickTime format such as MP4. The solution is a piece of software that will assist with the video download, do the format conversion, and place the converted file in your iTunes folder for easy transfer to your iPod. Michael Arrington of TechCrunch recommends iTube for Windows or PodTube for Mac.

Jing Project is a free tool for both Mac and Windows users, that lets you capture your computer screen as a static image or a screencast, and then share your screen capture as a URL. Which means that not only are they providing the software to create the capture, they are also providing free hosting. How could you use this? It’s up to you. Add your Jing captures to your chats, your social networking, or your websites. Use to for fun, or to demonstrate computer stuff to friends and co-workers.

Although Windows has built-in support for burning CDs, burning DVDs requires extra software. Many DVDs come with software such as Nero or Roxio, but computer expert Leo Notenboom recommends a free alternative: ImgBurn . For more, read Ask Leo’s detailed instructions.

Codec (short for compressor/decompressor) is a compression format used in video, such as MPEG-4 or DivX.. Your computer media player (for example, Windows Media Player, QuickTime or iTunes) should recognize the codec required for a particular video, and play the video automatically. If it does not, you will need to find and download the correct codec yourself. Here are some resources to help you find one: Video Help or Movie Codec.

Have you ever wanted to convert a file into a different format, but didn’t own the proper software? Zamzar is an online service that will convert files for free. It handles dozens of file conversions including documents, images, audio and video. Simply upload your file, choose your desired format, and enter your email address. When the conversion is complete, you will receive an email with a download link.