Safer Viewing with YouTube

YouTube! We love, and we hate it! As educators, we love it because it has valuable, rich content we can share with students. As educators, we hate it because its riddled with ads and other content that is often inappropriate for students.

Here are three options for safer YouTube viewing with pros and cons for each:

Theater Mode
Pros:

• instead of viewing your video in full screen
• pushes suggestions and comments to the bottom on the screen, often out of sight
• easy and quick to use
• no additional programs required

Cons: 

• will not block ads or suggested videos

Adguard AdBlocker (Chrome Extension)

Pros:

• works on ALL websites
• blocks the majority of ads
• easy on/off toggle 

Cons:

• only works with Chrome (Although, some might see this as a pro!)
• extra step- must download the Chrome Extension 

SafeShare TV
Pros:

• little to no ads
• no suggested videos
• a new link is actually created which you can bookmark
• show small segments of larger videos

Cons:

• several steps- find YouTube video, copy URL and paste in SafeShare TV site
• even though you can customize larger video into small segments, users still have access to the entire video

I hope you are able to use one of these three options for a safer viewing experience in your classroom. If you need help or have questions, please let me know. You can also download this guide with the same information.