50 Ways to Use YouTube in the Classroom made it to the Best YouTube Books of All Time

I'm happy to announce that my book, "50 Ways to Use YouTube in the Classroom", made it to BookAuthority's Best YouTube Books of All Time:

BookAuthority collects and ranks the best books in the world, and it is a great honor to get this kind of recognition. Thank you for all your support!
The book is available for purchase on Amazon.

50 Ways to Use YouTube in the Classroom - ON AMAZON!

It's finally here! 50 Ways to Use YouTube in the Classroom is now available on Amazon! Increase productivity, inspire creativity, improve communication skills, capture student interest, and personalize learning.  From basic navigation to simple integration ideas to content creation and channel optimization, this book will help you harness the power of today’s most popular video platform and convert it to a dynamic tool for learning. 50 Ways to Use YouTube in the Classroom is a must-have guide for every teacher looking to inspire and connect learning to the digital world their students inhabit.

Read more about the book at YouTubeClassroom.com and check out the 20 video tutorials accompanying the book at youtube.com/pgreensoup

Facebook Takeover Time

This next week I'm sharing a bit about my upcoming book on the Project Learn Inspired by EdTechTeam Press Facebook Page. If you are interested in infusing your classroom with a bit of YouTube creativity and fun, then please do join me over at the above mentioned page and join in the conversation!

Why Subscribe on YouTube?

YouTubers are always asking for you to subscribe to their channels.  And you should, if you like the videos being produced.  By subscribing to a particular YouTube channel, and depending on your notification settings, you'll be alerted when the channel uploads new content.  Additionally, the new content will be highlighted on the "home" page whenever you head over to YouTube.  Speaking of subscribing, if you are wanting more tips and tricks for using YouTube in an educational setting, you should subscribe to my channel, where I'm publishing 20 tutorials to go with my new book 50 Ways to Use YouTube in the Classroom.  

Filter a YouTube Search to Find the Good Stuff

There are tons of educational videos on YouTube. In fact, there are over 1 billion views each day on learning-related YouTube videos.  One strategy for zeroing in on the best stuff is to filter your search by channel or playlist.  If you filter down to channel, you're search results will surface producers (channels) that are related to your search topic- organizations that will continue to create material related to your topic.  And if you filter by playlist, you'll search will surface collections of videos that other users have bundled together - which might help you to find a number of quality videos on the same topic. In this video, I'll show you how to filter your YouTube search. If you're interested in viewing the other 19 videos being produced as part of 50 Ways to Use YouTube in the Classroom, be sure to subscribe to my YouTube Channel.


 If you are looking to expand your use of YouTube, check out my book 50 Ways to Use YouTube in the Classroom over at YouTubeClassroom.com

Blocking Communication Tools in Schools

Over the course of the last 24 hours I was asked (over Google+ and Twitter) the following questions:

1. Does your school allow or block Google Hangouts for student use?

2. How can you convince a school district to stop blocking YouTube?

Both questions are about limiting or restricting the student use of communication and information tools, and the irony is that these questions were asked using online communication tools. If I were to answer these questions with questions I would ask:

1.  Why would a learning institution block tools that allow students to communicate, to connect with experts, to globally collaborate and ask questions and get answers?

 It seems to me that schools should be in the business of teaching communication and providing increased access to information. While the YouTube question requires more time and will be the subject of a future blog post, I've done my best to answer the Hangouts question here.

Does your school allow or block Google Hangouts for student use?

At my school, students K-12 have a Google (GSuite) account with everything turned on. Starting in grade 5 students take the devices home each day. We have high expectations for our students around digital citizenship and when our students go outside the bounds of those, our counselors and principals would get involved and work with those students.

Specifically to Hangouts, it is a video conferencing and chat software. Video conferencing and chat are relevant tools that are important for our students to have access to and training in. Hangouts enable global communication and collaboration which are two of our desired student learning outcomes. Additionally, without practice in those areas, our students would be at a disadvantage as far as college and career readiness. Now the truth is, I don't know how much our 3rd graders are using Hangouts, but I know that in Middle School and High School our students are connecting with peers and experts around the world whether with a mentor on a passion project or through language classes where they practice communicating with native speakers.

In a nutshell, since communication and collaboration are so important to what we do in learning institutions today, we wouldn't consider blocking or disabling the tools that enable those practices. In fact, we want to engage our students in using these tools so that we can coach and guide and help them to learn appropriate use.

The YouTube Classroom Book Website is LIVE!

The website is up!  Check out YouTubeClassroom.com where you can:
1.  Read some early reviews of 50 Ways to Use YouTube in the Classroom.
2.  Sign-up for the mailing list so you'll be notified when the book is available on Amazon.
3. Subscribe to my YouTube channel to get free supplemental tutorials for each chapter.