YouTube in Your Classroom

YouTube is a powerful tool.  It's difficult to argue with this statement.  We, at #CCSDTech, are here to support you in making YouTube a powerful tool in the classrooms of Cherry Creek Schools.  This post, more specifically, will focus on supporting teachers with using YouTube more effectively as a presentation tool.  Let's get right to it.

We've mentioned it before and we're going to mention it again.  One of our favorite, as well as easy to use, YouTube tools is Turn Off the Lights.

There is no doubt that the comments, suggested videos, and everything else that is posted around a YouTube video can be a huge distraction (or worse) when a teacher is showing a video to students via their computer through a projector.  Leaving everything up and easily visible while you show a video to a class full of kids can be a potential gamble.  Turn Off the Lights is a Chrome browser extension which hides everything but the window the YouTube video is playing in.  The chances to customize the view in Turn Off the Lights are numerous as well.  Easy installation and use as well as plenty of chances to personalize the view are two of the many reasons why we highly recommend and use Turn Off the Lights when we show YouTube videos.

Check out the difference below.

Traditional YouTube without Turn Off the Lights:

YouTube while using Turn Off the Lights, one simple click later:

Side note: We've already featured Turn Off the Lights in blog posts here and here.  Any tool worth mentioning over and over is worth exploring.  Check it out.

Adjusting the Start Time of a Linked YouTube Movie

Sometimes you'll want to begin a movie in the middle of a YouTube clip.  There's the option of actually dragging your cursor to a particular point in the video and letting it play from there.  Here's a more efficient option.  Pause the movie where you'd like it to begin, click on the share button below the movie window, click in the "Start at..." box, then copy the special link YouTube gives you.  Share/post the link to that movie with the special URL and it will begin right where you want it to when someone clicks on the link.  Magic.

For example, I want you to go straight to the chorus of this classic song when you click on this link.  Sing it, Teddy P.

Extracting the Middle of a YouTube Clip

If you require showing the middle of a YouTube clip (nothing more and nothing less) look no further than TubeChop.  TubeChop supports users with extracting the middle of any YouTube video.  Copy the YouTube URL of the video you'd like to share, paste it into TubeChop, decide when you want your start and end times to be, include your own description or "teaser" (if you wish), and get a unique link or embed code so you can share just what you want your audience to see.

I set up an example in TubeChop here.  Enjoy.

Exploring Code in YouTube

But wait, there's more.  We're actually just getting started with YouTube sharing and viewing options.  Google gives users some serious flexibility when it comes to embedding videos.  YouTube coding magic starts just underneath the video once you click on the "Share" option and then "Embed."

If you can copy and paste you're more than qualified to explore coding.  Check out this link for information for beginners all the way up advanced options. 

As you may have already guessed, there are plenty more YouTube features, tips, and tricks that we'll be sharing with you in the near future and throughout the year.  Student interaction while viewing videos, creating YouTube playlists, uploading best practices in YouTube, and more are on the way.  Stick with us.  We're here to help you be smarter with YouTube.  Stay tuned!  

Flip, Flip Hooray!

It's been a few weeks, how are you feeling about flipped-learning?

So far we have defined blended learning and flipped classrooms and explored some statistics about the topics. This week we will turn to a couple noted experts in the field to see what they have to say. Jon Bergmann and Aaron Sams are pioneers in the flipped-learning community. Interesting to note that they both taught in nearby Woodland Park, Colorado. The gentlemen have co-authored a few books through ASCD and ISTE: Flip Your Classroom:  Reach Every Student in Every Class Every Day

and Flipped Learning: Gateway to Student Engagement and the soon to be released Flipping the Science Classroom.

Additionally, they have an excellent series of videos on Edutopia as part of the Flipped-Learning Toolkit. Click the picture below to find the toolkit. What are you waiting for? Go grab your favorite beverage, turn up the volume and get ready to further your learning. You will be entertained and glad you took the time to rethink how you share content. Ultimately, your students will be the the ones saying, "Flip, flip, hooray!"  Or something like that!  

Need more?  Check out their YouTube Channel about Flipped Learning.  

Next week we will explore tools that you can consider as you start down this flipping path!  

Tuesday Tech Tip: Being Smarter with YouTube -- Turn Off the Lights

Many teachers & educators like to use YouTube and other video clips to support learning and instructional goals, but one of the downsides to showing a clip for an audience (via projector) is that sometimes you get content that you didn't necessarily want to display (especially if you're working with a class full of kids).  A typical YouTube clip has "suggested" videos on the sides, comments at the bottom, and other content like ads.  CNN.com and other sites with videos have similar layouts (extra content).

One easy solution if you're using the Chrome browser is to install the "Turn Off the Lights" extension (although it's available for other browsers as well). Once installed, the Turn Off the Lights icon -- which is a light bulb -- appears in the right side of your URL bar in Chrome (right next to the star or bookmark icon).  When you go to a YouTube window or an article with a video on a news site, you can click on the light bulb icon and it will darken everything on the screen except the clip, effectively hiding distracting or questionable content.

Before Turn Off the Lights is enabled

After Turn Off the Lights is enabled

You can also customize how this extension behaves with web pages & video clips.  Right-clicking on the icon will give you a menu with "Options."  For example, you can opt to leave certain parts of the YouTube page visible (like information about the clip), you can have customized backgrounds or effects, and you can also tell it to automatically dim whenever you go to a certain site. If you want to have students focus on certain parts of a page, you can have a spotlight effect so that your  mouse can "light up" certain parts of the page while the rest remains "lights out."

There are other tools that accomplish similar effects with video, but Turn Off the Lights is easy to use and has solid customization choices.  If you show videos to audiences and would like to focus their attention on the actual clip, it's a great option.