So does mine. It is unfortunate, but I can understand the predicament. Filter the net for obscenity or lose Federal funding dollars. Hard to argue that YouTube is classroom friendly “as-is”.
This should not stop you from using YouTube in your classroom. It just means you will lose some spontinaety in responding to “teachable moments.” With a little planning (something teachers are all too familiar with) you can download those videos from YouTube with valuable educational content to your computer in the evening while outside of your district’s filter, and play them from your computer tomorrow.
The easiest way would be to use Miro, (the free and open source cross platform video player) to search for and download the files. This actually works across MANY online video services.
Why stop there? You could take this a step further.
While at home, search for appropriate content in YouTube, download it, and build playlists of these videos that support your curriculum.
Viola! Appropriate use of YouTube in your classroom!
