YouTube Promotes Educational Content to Schools

YouTube is currently reaching out to instructors, particularly to those who view the online video-streaming portal as distraction to students. YouTube has recently come up with You Tube for Schools. This new brand helps teachers enhance the learning experience for students, and consequently encourage them to actively particpate in class lectures. YouTube filtered and disabled some of their features to ensure that student's attention is not divided. Posting comments, for instance, is not allowed. How does it work You Tube.EDU manages the project. This is YouTube's response to the demand of teachers and schools who believe in the potential of the online site to improving instructional learning. You Tube has several educational videos on it, but it cannot be played in classrooms due to tendencies that students would not be able to focus. The downside is that as schools try to restrict students from accessing unfriendly content, beneficial or useful videos also get blocked. YouTube for Schools offers a solution to this dilemma. Content creator Youtube.EDU head Angela Lin says they collaborated with teachers and over 600 organazitions to help keep the content balanced. They have partnered with Technology, Entertainment and Design or TED, the online portal where inspirational talks by credible speakers from across the globe, are uploaded; and Smithsonian, which is recognized as the largest museum and research center in the world. More than 400 playlists which are classified by grade level and subjects are made available. Loopholes There are weaknesses though as to the efficiency of this project that caters from pre-school to college level. As such, there is a possibility that a video useful for college students who are into media studies may not show up, as is it is deemed inappropriate to those taking Math classes. Laying out solutions The solution: Have teachers create their own playlists where they can simply upload videos that they want played. When downloading videos, they have access to all videos in YouTube. During the class, they can pull out their playlist to esnure that no unnecessary videos pop out the screen. They need not search over again as their video are already organized. Significance of videos in classrooms Educational content. That is what YouTube is promoting as they launch YouTube for schools. Videos in classrooms facilitate teaching of lectures that otherwise could have been so complex, like genetic make-up or anatomy of microorganisms. Students can also use these informative videos as reference materials in completing essay writing outputs. Digital vs. traditional instructional materials YouTube boosts the use of digital instructional materials in classrooms. What do you think of YouTube for Schools, does it develop or diminish student's interest in learning?