In this day and age, teachers need to use every resource at their disposal. With distance learning being something that doesn’t seem to be going anywhere soon, one of those tools may very well be YouTube. This platform is a great place to create a video that corresponds with your curriculum for your students to access them at any time. 

If you are going to use the platform, there are extra considerations that need to be made. There are also YouTube features every teacher should know how to use before posting those educational videos.

Below we are going to take a look at those and why you should use the platform. Let’s start with that question first.

Why Use YouTube In The Classroom?

There are many reasons that YouTube can be a great addition to your classroom, especially when having virtual classrooms. The platform gives you access to videos from experts and different viewpoints from around the world. If patient, you can find a video for any topic that will further your student’s education.

Along with this, you will be able to create videos for your lessons and leave them up for as long as you want. This gives the students another educational aid in retaining the lessons. You could also use the platform to add to what you have to say since most distance learning classes are shorter than traditional classes. 

You can also allow your student to upload to the channel, which could be good for multiple reasons. The first is that this might build a better classroom community. It also is excellent to add a different and innovative option to projects. 

Features To Know

If you have opted to use YouTube for your classroom, whether in the traditional space or the virtual world, there are some settings that you should know how to use. 

Blur

Here are editing tools that you can use when uploading a video. One of the most useful may be the blur tool. This is a great tool to use when you want to blur out sensitive information. 

You can also use it to blur out students’ faces or interviewees who don’t want to be seen or objects that are not key to the lesson. The blur tool is found by choosing the video you want to edit and clicking on the edit tab. Then, follow the prompts to the blur tool. 

Privacy & Comments Settings

When you post your videos, there are privacy settings and comment settings that you can activate. For instance, you can turn off comments, as well as make videos private. These options are found in the more options tab when you are uploading your content. 

Enable Collaboration

If you collaborate with other teachers, then setting your channel up for collaboration is essential. This will allow your partner or partners to upload videos that can be used for lessons, as well. When you are uploading, go to the permissions tab, and there you will find the checkboxes to enable collaboration.

Hyperlinked Timestamps

If your lesson is longer than a few minutes, you may want to add timestamps so that the kids can find what they are looking for. These hyperlinked timestamps allow the student to go back to parts they missed or didn’t understand. There are many videos and tutorials on how to do this.

Adjust Captions/Create Transcripts

Understanding how to fix captions or create a transcript may help you ensure that students who learn better by reading are also getting everything they need. This will also allow the student to watch the videos with no sound if they need to. 

When you have uploaded a video, click on it and then choose subtitles. As for the transcripts, many affordable online websites will transcribe a video for you. 

Concluding Thoughts

YouTube used to be just for entertainment, but it has become an excellent learning tool over the last 5 – 7 years. As long as an educator is careful and understands how to use these YouTube features, they should benefit from incorporating it in their curriculum.