Opening up a world of educational content with YouTube for Schools

When I was in school during the 90s, watching videos in the classroom was a highlight of any week. The teacher would roll in a television on a cart, pop in a VHS tape, and then we’d enjoy whatever scratchy science video my teacher had checked out from the school video library that week. Sight, sound and motion have always had the power to engage students and complement classroom instruction by bringing educational topics to life. We’ve been hearing from teachers that they want to use the vast array of educational videos on YouTube in their classrooms, but are concerned that students will be distracted by the latest music video or a video of a cute cat, or a video that might not be appropriate for students. While schools that completely restrict access to YouTube may solve this distraction concern, they also limit access to hundreds of thousands of educational videos on YouTube that can help bring photosynthesis to life, or show what life was like in ancient Greece.

9 YouTube Tips and Tricks for Teachers Hello there! If you are new here, you might want to subscribe to the RSS feed for updates and/or follow me on Twitter. Info on how to contact me is on the About page. Thanks for visiting! YouTube is still the best place to find videos to use in the classroom, despite being blocked in many schools. Remove the clutter: Often, the biggest problem with YouTube isn’t the video content, but some of the inappropriate comments that can occur in the space below the video. 1. 2. 3. 4. (Update – sadly XL is no more. Other YouTube Tricks 5. If you now use this link as a hyperlink in your IWB software or PowerPoint, the video will start playing at the point that you chose. 6. 7. Don’t forget that you can choose the video quality of the video, where available. 8. If available, you can turn on subtitles by clicking on the CC button. Click on the CC button and then choose “settings” to change the size, font and colour of the captions. 9. Many videos now also have an interactive transcript. Like this: