You Tube In The Classroom? : Ways You Can Say Yes!

It is undeniable that YouTube may be one of the richest, most  underused educational resources on the planet. The reason being, it is blocked by many school systems for obvious reasons. This blog posting  is devoted to revealing ways you can Say Yes to YouTube in the Classroom  using free technology available to you today!

According to a Wikipedia article in 2008 YouTube, which by the way is owned by Google, had a collection of 83.4 million videos. Today it is possible that the April 2008 numbers have doubled!  In July of 2009  YouTube was the fourth most popular website in the United States with  8.9 billion videos viewed by 120.3 million people.  My point, YouTube does have resources that can compliment standards taught in the classroom. I just recently put together some videos that can be used in this year’s Future City Project Based Learning Program.  I was successful at  finding  a large number of videos that could explain LEEDS Green Buildings, this year’s program topic.  Take a look at this link in my Wiki for more info on Future City and those videos.

Bringing YouTube into the classroom requires a teacher to carefully search, screen, and find videos that compliment learning objectives . Once the video is found it must be properly incorporated in the unit of study. Once these key points  have been satisfied, it is time to investigate ways to make the video viewable in the educational setting.

Four Strategies to Saying Yes to YouTube in the Classroom

1. Check out this  site called www.safeshare.tv. This  is a relatively new site for sharing YouTube videos under the SafeShare Address. Not only that, SafeShare removes all of the wording, ads, forums, and comments. All the students see is the video on a safe gray screen.  Another cool feature allows the teacher to edit the video. This allows the video to be played back with only the sections best suited for the curriculum. The process is simple.  The teacher visits YouTube, selects the video, copies the video URL, pastes it into SafeShare, and posts the newly generated safe share link for the video.

2. Use Keepvid to  Download educational videos from the YouTube  website at home and show them the next day.  The process involves going  to www.youtube.com and finding the video that matches instructional needs. Copy the URL of the video to be used. Now visit www.keepvid.com. Find the blank and paste the URL of the YouTube video. Next, click the download button at the end of the URL bar. Keepvid will now give you a choice of formats and you should  right-click on the one you want and then select Save As.  Name the  video and save it to your Desktop. Once the video is downloaded, you may wish to copy it to a flash drive to be used in the classroom the next day. These video can also be put in a network folder,  broadcast out to numerous desktops  for multiple access, or played off the flash drive for total class viewing.

3. Have you heard of TeacherTube?  Here is a great service where teachers share videos, pictures, audios, documents, and blogs. You may find your YouTube video on this site. There may even be additional videos that compliment the curriculum. Your IT Department could be willing to open up the entire TeacherTube site.

4. Check with your school’s IT department. They may unblock the specific address to the video you are using. Understand, however, that this may open up forums and messages that you do not want the students viewing.

Through proper research, planning, integration with curricular standards,  creativity, and technological strategies, teachers really can Say Yes to YouTube in the classroom.   It is free and it can be used effectively to engage students using the digital modality they are native to. For other free and inexpensive ideas to promote learning that is relevant and rigorous visit my 21centuryedtech wiki. It is time for you to Say Yes!