YouTube in the Classroom

YouTube has been around for a while and I have used it several times in the classroom with my students. I have found supplemental videos and recorded my own as part of “flipped” lessons. While this is a great tool to use in the classroom to engage students, it does come with some downsides.

What I have learned from using YouTube is YOU MUST PREVIEW EVERY VIDEO before you show it in class. It does not matter if it looks like it is from a reputable source, it is still important to preview it. (I once found a video from History Channel on Ceasar and during the interview with the historian there was a very anatomically correct sculpture of a man in the background.) Now I preview everything, because even if a video is labeled “clean” version it might just mean “cleaner” version (history of the entire world video).

Besides a few hiccups with using this tool, I enjoy being able to find videos to supplement my lessons because I feel it can engage students. Sometimes they would rather listen and watch a video about tell about the journey of Mansa Musa instead of their teacher explaining.

YouTube does now have a sub section called YouTube EDU which includes videos curated into playlists that may fall into the #education tag. After looking through this section more closely this week I find that it is hard to navigate through all the videos to find a certain topic. There are playlists and other sections that can help narrow the search but you might be better off just searching google or YouTube for the topic and sifting through the videos yourself.

YouTube does have some reputable channels from PBS, Ted-ED (my favorite!), and CrashCourse, so don’t shy away from using this tool in the classroom, as long as your preview the video first!