YouTube is a fantastic platform for any educator looking for educational videos. The problem is the ads and recommended videos come in the way of learning. There are several ways to block these ads and one can also use add-on’s for both Firefox and Chrome to remove them altogether. Some schools have gone taken the extraordinary measure of blocking YouTube out of their network thus removing the ability for educators to use this powerful, educational resource.
The owners of YouTube (Google) know about all of this and have recently ramped up its efforts to ease the use of YouTube while removing classroom distractions. They have also made it safe and convenient for educators with lots or little knowledge of technology to use their website. They are now offering the ability for educators to sign-up for their YouTube for Schools program.
Think of this as another channel in the YouTube universe, but specifically tailored for educators. The new site provides access to educational videos from inside your school network. It also allows schools the ability to access a broad set of educational videos on YouTube EDU. They have added a filtering system to select the specific videos that are accessible to both students and teachers. This is not to be confused with similar YouTube websites such as YouTube EDU or YouTube Teachers. They have also posted step-by-step instructions for the Network Administrator at your school.
Instructions can be found here; http://bit.ly/PsYoa4
To sign-up and learn more about this new and exciting program please visit their website at; http://www.youtube.com/schools