YouTube without a doubt is the most popular website for video on the internet. However, this site is cause for concern by school districts due to the inappropriateness of some of its content. For this reason, YouTube is blocked in many school districts around the world (for safer ways to view YouTube videos click here).
While there are paid solutions for bringing video to the classroom such as Discovery Education Streaming or Safari Montage, there are a number of free websites that provide a nice alternative as well.
Remember when dealing with video it's important to check the content first before viewing with students. Educators must abide by CIPA compliance and not all video sites are safe even when using a school district's filter.
Top 10 Alternatives to YouTube
- School Tube - Excellent safe place for students and teachers to share and view video.
- WatchKnow - Wonderful site with 1000's of videos for students in multiple subjects, organized in a clear, precise way.
- Neo K-12 - All videos on this amazing site are a 100% safe. Also, there is a complete suite of educational tools for educators to choose from, such as quizzes, presentations, and more.
- Snag Learning - An interesting site that brings documentary-style films to engage students in discussion and classroom participation.
- Qwiki - A very new (alpha) site that brings an innovative twist on video experience. While the content is still growing, one can't help but notice that amount of promise that is shown here.
- Explore - Great site, similar to Discovery Streaming for educational video. Users can either view on the web or download for their own convenience.
- Kids Tube - Excellent filtered site for kids' videos.
- Teacher Tube - Excellent site for educators to find videos for students and share in the wonderful educational online community.
- Vimeo - A nice very popular alternative to YouTube. I recommend using with a filter of some sort, or view all content before introducing to students.
- Clip Blast - A huge collection of videos can be found on this nice site; must be used in a filtered environment for safety reasons.
David Kapuler is an educational consultant with more than 10 years of experience working in the K-12 environment. For more information about his work, contact him at dkapuler@gmail.com and read his blog at cyber-kap.blogspot.com
