Educational Videos on YouTube?

Since I posted about how to search for educational videos on Google, I've seen several posts bemoaning the lack of educational searching capabilities on YouTube. Actually, the capabilities are there, although You Tube certainly hasn't made it easy. I have several suggestions for how we educators can better utilize YouTube.

#1 – Request the Education be added as a category.

A – Go to http://www.youtube.com/contact

B- Fill in the following information:
Subject: Customer Service
Topic: Suggestions/ Feedback
Video: None

C – Copy and paste the following information in the suggestion box (or write your own):

As part of the educational community, I would like to see an education category on youtube. Currently, we can search for educational videos on Google and find a wealth of information that can be used in our classrooms. There is no easy way to do this on youtube. Please consider adding “Education” as a category on YouTube. Thank you.

#2 How to use YouTube for Education Now.

Currently there are two groups on YouTube that you can upload your videos too. First of all, I think that the K12 group (located at: http://youtube.com/group/K12 ) managed by Dean Shareski in Canada seems to be a good group to upload to. I have created one at http://youtube.com/group/coolcatteacher for my videos. (Warning: Your video must be less than 10 minutes, they rejected my skype demo and I'm going to have to shorten it.)

You can go to youtube and join and then find me and subscribe to my videos. (It sounds a lot like blogging, huh?)

What we need to do
We need to pioneer the use of these spaces. Perhaps the reason that so many administrators want to block things is that they do not see the usefulness for their classrooms. It will take those of us who have supportive administration to use these tools effectively and document our work and results to encourage others to create a rich environment for their students through the use of video.

I did a straw poll of my students after discussing a short excerpt from the World is Flat. I asked how many would rather learn from the History Channel or a History Textbook. Ninety per cent — the History Channel. Is that a surprise? Not to any of us who know students.

It doesn't mean that we need to hand over our classroom to the Tube — it means that we need to harness the power of video as a technology that immerses students in rich information.

Join Youtube today. Post your videos. Advocate the set up of an education category. We cannot rest our hands on the spacebar and wish that the Internet was more education friendly. Wise websites understand that if they can get the use of teens now, they'll have them in the future, so momentum is on our side.

Join in!