TeacherTube.com‘s goal is to provide an online community for sharing instructional videos. We seek to fill a need for a more educationally focused, safe venue for teachers, schools, and home learners. It is a site to provide anytime, anywhere professional development with teachers teaching teachers. As well, it is a site where teachers can post videos designed for students to view in order to learn a concept or skill.

TeacherTube also aggregates thousands of videos from educators, YouTube, and the rest of the web.  It’s a great clearinghouse of educational videos that cover most school subjects.

This is a good alternative for school districts that want to utilize video, but at the same time, feel the need to block YouTube from their classrooms.

Check it out, and enjoy the FREE resources!

YouTube is notoriously blocked by several school districts, the Chicago Public Schools being the most prominent example in my mind.  YouTube has a LOT of great educational content, but unfortunately this content gets pushed down due to the controversial content that the media grabs onto.

Yesterday, YouTube took a major step in solving this issue for parents and schools: YouTube Safety Mode. From the Google Blog:

Diversity of content is one of the great things about YouTube. But we know that some of you want a more controlled experience. That’s why we’re announcing Safety Mode, an opt-in setting that helps screen out potentially objectionable content that you may prefer not to see or don’t want others in your family to stumble across while enjoying YouTube. An example of this type of content might be a newsworthy video that contains graphic violence such as a political protest or war coverage. While no filter is 100% perfect, Safety Mode is another step in our ongoing desire to give you greater control over the content you see on the site.

A video demonstration is below.  In my opinion, this is an excellent filter, and should solve school district’s issues with YouTube.  You can now lock down the computer’s browser so that kids can’t disable the filter.  While this is far from perfect, it’s a major step.  I even have this enabled for my account, and I like YouTube a lot more now; it keeps a lot of the garbage out.

What do you think? Leave a comment below.

This video has been on YouTube for a couple of years, but the message is a powerful one.  As school leaders, it’s imperative that you understand the battle brewing.  If I were a kid today, and I had to choose between outside media/tech and the typical classroom, I’d completely zone out in the “boring” classroom.

We have to have to be more interesting and engaging than the TV, the portable device, and the computer.  We can do this simply by using those elements appropriately, making the classroom experience enjoyable.  The classroom experience won’t be watered down because you’re using tech; instead it will be enhanced and ever evolving.

Watch this 4 minute video, and share your thoughts.