Safely Watching YouTube in the Classroom #edtech

Ah, YouTube, wonderful site with many educational videos and the potential for kids to show what they've learned and teach others, but bastion of inappropriate videos and terrible comments that have no place in the classroom. Ads are also a part of the equation, a necessary evil of a free website, but they can be intrusive too. Not to mention the related videos and suggested items that clutter up your screen and take kids down rabbit trails. If only there was a better way...

Here are a few alternatives to just going to YouTube in front of your students and watching videos:

1. Download the videos ahead of time - This one obviously takes the most preparation but is very useful because it's quicker to play videos from your computer vs streaming, especially if you're additionally streaming to an Apple TV or other device. The sites I currently use to download videos are below and they all allow you to copy and paste a YouTube URL into a search bar and then download the video. In addition, they have quicker ways to grab the video.

• yout.com - 0n YouTube, if you simply remove the letters 'ube' from the URL of a video and press Enter you will be redirected to yout.com and the video will be ready to download
• dlyoutube.com - same goes for dlyoutube.com, simply add the letters 'dl' to the front of the URL and press Enter.
• y2mate.com - just type 'pp' after the word YouTube and press Enter

You can also grab the audio from a YouTube video on these sites if that's all you need.


2. Use the DF YouTube Chrome Extension - This is a little tool that, once downloaded, lives in your Chrome toolbar and automatically hides all of the little nasties when you go to YouTube. Simple and clean.

3. Use alternative websites to view YouTube content - The following sites allow you to copy and paste the YouTube URL into their search bar and the video is then streamed on their site with none of the yuckies and unintended content.

• https://watchkin.com/
• https://safeshare.tv/
• http://viewpure.com/

Note: if YouTube is blocked in your district, these sites will not allow you to bypass that as they simply stream the video from YouTube onto their site.