I covered the new YouTube Teachers channel dedicated to educators in the After Hours on Friday already, but due to “Cosmic Panda” which I used on my YouTube account, I wasn’t able to access the channel.
Therefore, let’s take a closer look at YouTube’s effort to make the portal more compelling for teachers today in this post.
So far, teachers were on their own in both attempts of a) finding great educational videos for their classes and b) how to produce online educational video. YouTube want to change this and make it easier for teachers access the topic.
YouTube believe in the educational sense of using video in the classroom, and there is no doubt that YouTube videos are being used in classrooms all over the world right now.
However, the classic teacher today is not necessarily a main contributor or creator of video content. May it be due to technical challenges or not knowing how to bring a curriculum in a video format and put it online. YouTube teachers aims to change this fundamentally. The YouTube Teachers channel was created with the help of teachers and it for other educators, to not only show them how to use educational video in the classroom effectively but also best practises how to become a producer of educational video for your students on YouTube.
While this concept of teachers learn from other teachers and get trained by industry professionals is nothing new in itself, YouTube want to go beyond the classic workshops and take this onto an international level with global reach. This way, at least teachers who have Internet access and access to YouTube can learn from colleagues and like-minded people from around the world. Teachers can also actively influence the content on the YouTube Teachers channel when suggesting their favorite playlists to the team.
Still many questions remain unanswered. Who is a teacher in today’s world and thus whose content should be available to the users of YouTube for teachers? And what makes an effective educational video if we take Derek Muller’s findings into consideration? I am sure we will talk more about all that in the weeks and month ahead.
Website: youtube.com/teachers
