I am regularly in classrooms, computer labs, meeting rooms, libraries, and offices of stakeholders in public education. As a guest, I am at the mercy of the network protocols and filtering of the school or school board that has invited me. Sometimes there are technical problems, other times everything goes smoothly. You just never know what quirky obstacle you will need to overcome before the workshop start time.
One common issue I face with school networks is the blocking of YouTube. Five years ago a collection of my Peel DSB colleagues and I started to advocate for the "unblocking of YouTube" and I recently learned that this effort has now been successful. YouTube is available to Peel teachers! This took far too long.
If teachers were surveyed, I have no doubt the vast majority will say that YouTube has delivered spectacular value to the own learning and the richness of the classroom experiences they construct daily. This is part of the reason why ExploreLearning recently launched a YouTube Channel as a venu for teachers to share lesson ideas using Gizmos.
So, I find it interesting that YouTube has rose to the challenge and found a solution.
YouTube launches a section just for schools
Excerpt written by Jeff Festa: (http://www.eschoolnews.com/2011/12/14/youtube-launches-a-section-just-for-schools/print/)
YouTube has created a special section for schools, filled with age-appropriate educational content.
YouTube for Schools gives users access to the hundreds of thousands of educational videos on YouTube EDU. This includes short lessons from top teachers around the world, full courses from the world’s best universities, professional development from fellow educators, andinspiring videos from thought leaders.
Educators also can customize the content that is available from the site. Though all schools receive access to all of the content on YouTube EDU, teachers and administrators can log in to YouTube.com and create playlists of videos that will be available at their school.
School teachers and administrators can log in and watch any video, but students cannot log in and can only watch YouTube EDU videos and videos their school has added. All comments and related videos are disabled, and search is limited to YouTube EDU videos.
YouTube also has created a page for teachers, YouTube.com/Teachers, to help them learn to use the site as a powerful educational tool. http://www.youtube.com/schools