• We all know that YouTube contains thousands (if not millions) of quality education videos, as well as lots of videos that don’t belong in any classroom. In the past, our Internet filter made it difficult to make quality videos accessible for students while blocking the bad videos, so all of youtube.com was blocked for students.

    Our new filter is still set to block YouTube videos for students by default, but it also gives us more flexibility to allow students to access specific sets of videos. Specifically, we now have the ability to allow students to view videos from specific YouTube channels. This focus on allowing YouTube channels is not only efficient, since opening a single channel can potentially open hundreds or thousands of videos for students, but it also makes us think a little harder about the source of the videos we’re asking students to view (in general, we can be more confident in the quality and appropriateness of a video from National Geographic or Khan Academy than one from MathGuyLikesPi or BirdWatcherChick).

    To assist teachers in using YouTube videos with students, we have created the following resources.

    External Videos

    The vast majority of our teachers want to use videos made by others with their students. To help with this, we have created an Approved YouTube Channel Directory that lists all currently approved YouTube channels from external sources. Teachers can be confident that any video from these channels will be accessible by students, even on district devices.

    We have tried to start teachers off with a variety of channels for use, but we know there are lots of other great channels out there that you may want to use with students. Using this form, teachers can submit requests for these channels to be approved for use with students. Please know that it may take some time to properly vet these channels and get them unblocked on our filter, but as we do, they will be added to our Approved YouTube Channel Directory.

    Internal Videos

    We do have several teachers who are creating their own videos and posting them on their CUSD GSE YouTube account, which is fantastic. To ensure that your own YouTube channel is accessible for students, please use this CUSD YouTube Channel Submission form. When we verify that your channel is indeed linked to a CUSD GSE account, we will add your channel to our filter’s “allow list” and notify you that we have done so.

    Important Notes

    We have many teachers are who using YouTube videos in sites like EdPuzzle, SafeShare, etc. While these sites do a great job of making these videos more educationally engaging, they do not prevent the video from being blocked for students on our filter. To use videos in these sites with students, they still need to come from our approved YouTube channel list.

    If you are uploading videos to your own YouTube channel, be sure to adhere to FERPA (don’t upload videos that feature students’ faces, voices, names, etc., without parental permission) and copyright (don’t upload videos that use copyright material, including background music). Videos that features students or include non-public material should be uploaded to Google Drive and only shared via Google Classroom (while disabling users’ ability to download or share the video).

     

    Thank you,

    Ed Tech Team