Good Morning!
YouTube is one of those apps that you either love or hate! Many teachers are nervous about using YouTube with students. However, there are many ways to use YouTube in a safe and educational way. It’s an indispensable resource for all kinds of educational videos!
1. In your G Suite log in, you’ll have access to YouTube through your app launcher (the nine dot box on the top right side of your Chrome toolbar.) The first thing to do to make YouTube better to use in the classroom is to create your own channel! You’ll do this by going to the 3 horizontal lines on the top left next to the YouTube logo. Then click on MY CHANNEL. Once there, you’ll have a pop up and you’ll need to click CREATE.
2. Once you’ve created your channel, you’ll be able to add videos to playlists (you can create your own), subscriptions to other people’s channels, watch later, and history. To create a playlist, click on playlist (in that same menu), and then click the + sign to create your playlist. Create as many playlists as you’d like. Many people create playlists for a subject area (legislative branch of the government), or a class period. This is extremely helpful if you have a sub. You can share your playlist by putting the URL for your playlist in sub plans. The sub then can just go to this playlist and play any video that is in the list. Have some Google docs or worksheets, and your students can learn the content you’d like to teach them. So, you can either find videos that are already made on YouTube, or record your own videos and upload them to your channel. I use Screen-Cast-O-Matic to make my screen recordings, but there are many others. I can make screen recordings, webcam recordings, or a mix of both (a screen recording with my webcam picture at the bottom. Students ARE able to access a playlist you’ve shared with them!
3. FYI – You can’t make more than one channel on your account unless you do this through Google+. You probably don’t need more than one channel, but if you do want one, I’d be happy to help!
4. Watch Later is another helpful tool. If you’re browsing videos and don’t have time to look at all the videos you’d like to see, plop them into the Watch Later area so you’ll find them easier. You can also browse your history to see what you’ve looked at over time.
5. Subscriptions are channels that you can subscribe to and get current videos from people you’d like to follow.
6. If you keep your browsing on YouTube to educational videos, you’re home page will suggest videos that appeal to the topics you’ve searched. So, what this means is for your school account, keep your browsing to school topics and then there is less likelihood that videos you don’t want your students to see pop up on your home page.
7. YouTube Red – At this time, I’m going to suggest you don’t sign up for YouTube Red. It costs money and I don’t personally think it worth it. You can get around ads if you want by finding a YouTube video you like and then putting the URL into Quietube. This basically takes all the ‘junk’ around the video away. However, you can also just make the video full screen. http://quietube.com/ This is the link where you can add quietube to your browser bar. There is also a Chrome Extension for Quietube.
8. Students and YouTube – Students do not have YouTube enabled on their school accounts. The reason this is so is because YouTube isn’t covered in the G-Suite apps and requires anyone under the age of 18 to have parent permission. However, you can still have students log in to school YouTube accounts another way. Last year, I gave all departments an Apple ID and a Gmail account that is not associated with our G-Suite account. Many teachers have used these accounts to have students upload videos they’ve created with iMovie or other apps to YouTube. I have all those log ins and Gmail accounts so if you are interested, please let me know if you need the log in information. Before having students log in, you will want to change the current password, and then when all the videos are uploaded, change the password back so they can’t access this account. GMS social studies and English classes have used this method and it works very well. Teachers can then put the videos into playlists for each hour and have students in those classes watch the videos their classmates have created! As always, if you need or want help with this, please let me know!
9. Again, you can create a theme for your channel! There is a little pencil on the top right of your YouTube home page. Click it and Edit Channel Art!
YouTube is an excellent resource for the classroom. Start building your channel today!