More and more teachers are producing small video clips. Many are still looking for the best way to make them available to their students. YouTube can be the solution. And no need to turn into a professional “youtuber” to reach the target.
Several reasons lead teachers to produce videos: explaining concepts, sharing precise information, explaining an approach, exercises to be carried out, giving feedback on assignments, etc. Most of the time, these are capsules produced informally and intended exclusively for their students.
On the other hand, sending these capsules by email or sharing them on collaboration platforms (such as Teams, Classroom, etc.) can quickly become complex due to the size limits of files and attachments.
“Creating a YouTube channel is a simple and effective option for teachers. Young people already spend a lot of time watching videos on this platform. They know her well. And contrary to what many fear, the videos will not be accessible to all users, unless you want to! », Indicates Maxime Laflamme, educational advisor at École branchée.
Thus, it is sufficient to share with students and / or their parents the URL of the channel, the link of a reading list or the link to the videos to the play.
Maxime also offers five tips for a well-organized educational channel.
1. Create playlists
In order to avoid that your videos are presented only as a long jumble list, it is better to create playlists (playlists) to organize videos by topic, subject or other. This greatly simplifies the consultation afterwards.
2. Video visibility: Not listed
When downloading a video, it is possible to select the option “Not listed” as the visibility choice. Thus, the video will be accessible only to those who have the link to the video. It will not be accessible to YouTube users doing research, for example.
3. Write your own subtitles or generate them automatically
Subtitles can be generated automatically when downloading a video. You must then choose the language of these subtitles. For more personalization, it is possible to write your own subtitles. These make it possible to contribute to the accessibility of a video for all.
4. Turn off ads to keep students focused
Ads are abundant on YouTube and sometimes very disparate. It may be a good idea to turn off the ads to prevent students from seeing more or less relevant ones that might distract them from the purpose of the video.
5. Create moments of interaction in the video using the "comment" function
It is possible to draw attention to specific segments of a video or simply divide it by chapter. To do this, just add a public comment in which we enter the precise time to pay attention during the video (for example: "1:34"). Automatically, this time indication will become clickable in the commentary and the students will be able to easily and quickly go to the necessary place in the video. For this function to be possible, you must keep the Comments option enabled when creating a video.
Need some inspiration?
Also, to get started easily on YouTube, Carrefour education offers:
