Video site YouTube has launched a new network setting aimed at the education market – YouTube for Schools – which allows teachers to bring up useful educational videos only and keep students from being distracted by other content, such as music videos.
The network setting ‘YouTube for Schools’ allows school administrators to grant access only to educational content from YouTube EDU.
Once the network setting is switched on, teachers can choose from the hundreds of thousands of videos on YouTube EDU created by more than 600 partners like the Smithsonian, TED, Steve Spangler Science, and Numberphile.
“Sight, sound and motion have always had the power to engage students and complement classroom instruction by bringing educational topics to life,” explained product manager Brian Truong.
“We’ve been hearing from teachers that they want to use the vast array of educational videos on YouTube in their classrooms, but are concerned that students will be distracted by the latest music video or a video of a cute cat, or a video that might not be appropriate for students.
“While schools that completely restrict access to YouTube may solve this distraction concern, they also limit access to hundreds of thousands of educational videos on YouTube that can help bring photosynthesis to life, or show what life was like in ancient Greece.
“To address this issue, we’ve developed, a network setting, ‘YouTube for Schools’, that school administrators can turn on to grant access only to the educational content from YouTube EDU,” Truong said.
