There's often a bit of a debate out there regarding the use of You Tube in the classroom and its appropriateness to embed into Class Blogs.
Often Class Blogs are seen as a 'safe zone' for student browsing and the inclusion of videos from You Tube can be seen by some teachers/schools as a breach to this 'safe zone'.
First up, there is NO doubt that You Tube is one of many valuable tools for teaching.
Teachers at my school use You Tube extensively in the classroom; often to show motivators for writing or instructional type videos (the possibilities are endless).
Due to this, yes, this does mean from time to time teachers also embed videos in the class blog so that students can review the video from home or show their parents etc.
Embedding videos in a blog, is of course preferential to sending students into you tube either via a link (where they will encounter the dreaded sidebar of 'suggested' videos to view and adverts) or to search wildly within You Tube - which is definitely unsafe for primary aged pupils to do at school IMHO.
With a few extra clicks, you can ensure that You Tube videos, useful for the education and learning of your class, can be safely embedded onto your class blog.
Usually when you embed a video, at the conclusion there is a raft of 'suggested' videos that pop up. These can be very distracting for students and unnerving for teachers - there is no way of us knowing what may pop up and this could lead to students clicking on inappropriate content.
Follow these easy instructions when embedding You Tube videos onto your Class Blog as part of your teaching/learning programme:
1.
Locate the video you would like to embed for your students' learningUnderneath the video, look for the "share" button & click it
2.
A box full of options will drop down, choose "embed"
3.
NOW, uncheck (untick) the tick next to the option that says "Show suggested videos when the video finishes"
4.
Copy the amended code
5.
Paste into your Class Blog and Publish (if using Blogger, don't forget to paste in 'HTML' mode)
You will now have a You Tube video that your students can easily access for their learning :)
Here's a video I used in class the other day to teach adjectives in writing:
Until next time, thanks for reading and happy 'You Tubing'.
Don't forget 'Teacher Tube' also has LOTS of valuable content to check out... more about that another day!
As always, I appreciate your comments!
