YouTube for Schools is a portal formulated thanks to demand from teachers and schools across the country to help curate education materials and videos on topics such as history and math while screening out potentially offensive or distracting content.
All schools can now jump on the YouTube educational bandwagon, youtube.com/education, rather than having to jump over Internet screening hurdles.
For schools that wishes to join into the YouTube for Schools Program, YouTube will redirect Web users who go to the site straight over to youtube.com/education. On this portion of the site, all annotation are disabled and the only related videos are those that can be found in the Education portal of the site. The option has been created for parents, teachers, and administrators who fear children will be exposed to inappropriate materials on the site.
YouTube project manager Brian Truong explained on the official YouTube blog that “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.”
“YouTube for schools is a technical solution to allow schools that normally control access to YouTube to gain access to it,” says Angela Lin, head of YouTube EDU. A blog post on YouTube further explains:
We have been receiving requests 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 cute cat, or a video that was not suitable for students. While schools that restrict access to YouTube may solve this distraction concern, they also limit access to hundreds of thousands of educational videos on YouTube that could help bring photosynthesis to life, or show what life was like in ancient Greece.
The site also functions as a network administrator that permits schools to only grant access to education materials on YouTube EDU as opposed to, say, movie trailers or other esoterica.
Also, to help balance the content, the site has been reinforced with content specific to K-12 education levels–teachers can now select from the hundreds of thousands of videos on YouTube EDU conceived by more than 600 partners like the Smithsonian, TED, Steve Spangler Science, and Numberphile that align with Common Core Standards, according to Angela Lin, head of YouTube Edu.
In addition, there are also more than 400 playlists sorted by grade level and subject including Science, English, Math, Social Studies more.
“Teachers have been through part of a months-long process watching videos to identify what make sense, what aligns with common core standards, and videos that they want to show in their own classrooms, whether it is a great kick-off video to a subject or to demonstrate concepts,” Lin said. “The site is now gives teachers a way to find relevant content that is easier and more efficient.”
Among the content are videos produced by the likes of MIT and the popular TED talks. Educational technology specialist Iain Maclaren welcomed the move, but urged caution over video-based learning.
“Learning in a more profound sense also needs real ‘interactive’ engagement; students actually working through problems themselves, trying again and again to understand new ideas and getting feedback from teachers or more advanced learners,” he said.
“So the use of video might help with motivation, be useful for revision and recap, but does not in itself necessarily lead to real, deep learning without other forms of activity, practice, engagement and communication,” he added.
Furthermore, videos from education organizations like the Spangler Effect, Numberphile, DeepSky Videos, and Crash Course will be on the Education site. Others include:
SCIENCE
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Newton’s laws of motion – OK Go – Rube Goldberg Machine
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Experiments – Steve Spangler – Oozing pumpkin experiment
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Light – minutephysics – There is no pink light
MATH
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Sums of infinite series – Vihart – Infinity Elephants
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Pythagorean theorem – PatrickJMT – Pythagorean Theorem
ENGLISH
Shakespeare – Open University – The History of English
To sign up for the Education network setting, network administrators can go to youtube.com/schools. They will have to fill out a form and receive an authentication key that empowers them to modify the http header. If YouTube is blocked, as it is in most schools, they can unblock the domain because all YouTube.com links will be redirected directly to youtube.com/education.
For a closer look at the YouTube for Schools “global classroom” initiative, check out the promo video below:
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