YouTube for Schools Opens Resources Up to the Classroom

You're sitting at home, planning a lesson when suddenly you come across the most incredible video to supplement what you are trying to convey. Unfortunately, YouTube is blocked in your school and this is not option. I have encountered this situation numerous times or when I am in the classroom working with students and a question comes up that would be perfectly illustrated with a video.

It's a shame that so much great content is blocked. The justification makes sense, students might get distracted and some of the content online might be inappropriate. Thankfully YouTube has developed a way that we can have the best of both worlds. With YouTube for Schools, it is now possible for schools to unblock and access the large amount of content on YouTubeEdu safely as potentially offensive related videos and comments are disabled.


I am so honored to have worked with the YouTube team on this project. I knew it would make a huge difference in student's opportunities to learn from all of the excellent quality out there.

One great feature of YouTube for Schools are the hundreds of teacher curated videos aleady aligned with the Common Core Standards for English Language Arts and Mathematics. For Science the National Science Education Standards were used and for History/Social Studies the videos were aligned to the California State Standards. Now you can easily find videos to supplement whatever you are working on.

With all of the great content available on YouTube, you would think all of the best videos have already been uploaded right? Think again. Every one of you has a great video, lesson, experiment, project, story to share and now you can.

Here is my favorite part: schools can add their own videos to their personal unblocked playlists. If you would like to suggest your own playlist to add to YouTube for Schools, submit it to YouTube.com/Teachers where you can see all the playlists without a login.

With this new tool to support student learning, some examples of how you could use videos in the classroom are:
1) Show a visual representation of a concept after a lesson.
2) Record an important lecture or activity so students can review it later (especially if they were absent).
3) Create a video for when you are absent to help the students and substitute know what to do.
4) Flip your classroom.

The last one, is really exciting. Upload a video and ask students to watch it at home. Then when they come to class, your time is free to go deeper into the subject, do an experiment or project, and all of the other things you wished you could do if you had more time.

Don't stop there, use the tools on the web to support your students and have them support each other.
  • With Google+ Hangouts, your students could form a study group and watch the video together to discuss.
  • Have students add comments to a Google Spreadsheet that can be reviewed the next day (example), its really easy to make a column filled with times.
    • Type 0:00:00 into Cell A2 and 0:00:01 in Cell A3 (or 0:00:05 to skip by 5 seconds, etc).
    • Highlight both cells then grab-and-drag the blue box in the corner.
However you do it, now students have a way to give specific feedback at their leisure (not constrained to class schedule or intimidated by peer pressure). You can refine the video if it was confusing to a lot of students and explain it better the next day in class. This kind of feedback might be difficult to obtain in class but now you have a way to assess student's learning and understanding as often as you would like.

YouTube for Schools opens your classroom up to the resources of the world. Teachers are empowered to supplement their lessons as well as share the amazing things they do with everyone.

Original Link from YouTube Blog - Opening Up a World of Educational Content with YouTube for Schools.

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