Many teachers these days use free educational videos in their lessons, but are they really worth it? Is it possible that using free resources procured from the internet could be detrimental to education?

The internet has made it easier than ever for both teachers and learners to find free, easy to use, helpful educational content with the press of a button. There is a plethora of educational content on the internet, with videos being some of the most popular. 

In this article, we will discuss whether or not using free educational videos is worth it. Read on for more. 

How Teachers Find Free Educational Videos

Educators use various resources and methods to find the videos that they use in their lessons. It should come as no surprise that most teachers use platforms like Google and YouTube to find educational videos since those are some of the most popular platforms out there. 

YouTube provides billions upon billions of user-created videos on the largest free video platform in the world. However, other than YouTube EDU, most of the content uploaded to the website is mostly created by the public and comes with its own problems. 

Content made for YouTube EDU is produced by teachers, content developers, and lecturers from universities and schools. This makes it one of the more reliable educational video resources on the internet. 

The Problem With Free Videos

While it might be easy to look for content on various topics using Google and YouTube, these videos are not without their own problems, like relevance and content quality. Teachers have to sift through thousands of search results to find a video that suits their needs. 

Even if an educator can find a trustworthy video, there are still some other problems that they might face. If they don’t watch the entire video and test it, they can’t be sure that inappropriate content and advertisements will not appear. 

There are also other issues like copyright to use the video without consent from its creator. There is also the dilemma of saving and sharing videos legally with students, other teachers, and parents. 

Are There Any Viable Alternatives?

Many schools and public libraries have databases of videos that can be searched for and used by patrons. The main drawback with these videos is that the variety would be quite limited, and you would have to check the video out to use it. 

High schools, universities, and colleges subscribe to several academic databases that have videos made for researchers, teachers, and students. These databases are mostly used for research purposes, limiting their practicality for use in the classroom. 

Concluding Thoughts

Thankfully, there are some internet resources which provide free educational videos that do not present the problems mentioned throughout this article. Be sure to visit their website if you are looking to introduce videos into your classroom.