YouTube: Everything you need to know and more...and the weekly Copyright Morsel.

YouTube...it's a love hate relationship.  It has both pros and cons alike.  YouTube can encourage creativity, it's free, the music, it can teach you "how to...just about anything", and there is a lot of educational content available.  But the same qualities that make it fun, educational, and interesting, can also bring up a host of problems such as spam, inappropriate material and/or images, bad language, privacy concerns, advertising, etc.

Common Sense Media provides several quick and easy suggestions for making YouTube a family friendly site in the article, A Parent's Ultimate Guide to YouTube.  Using the safety settings, parental guidance, and channel subscriptions are but a few of the recommendations suggested.

Looking for YouTube content for your classroom or family to subscribe to?  Consider the following 7 of the Best YouTube Channels for Kids.  National Geographic Kids and Sesame Street are two listed at the site.  You can also find links to two other published lists of recommended YouTube channels at the bottom of the page.

The Good, the Bad, and the Viral: YouTube Pros and Cons also discusses both sides of the YouTube issue as it relates to kids and the Internet.

Thinking of using YouTube videos in your classroom, and you want to eliminate the unexpected, and often distasteful advertising and pop-ups?  Copy the URL address into the SafeShare.TV site, and you will be redirected to a link free of everything, but the YouTube video itself.  Copy and paste the new URL address into your presentations to make them easy to find for the next time.

Maybe you only want to include a short piece of a YouTube video, try TubeChop.  Copy and paste the YouTube URL address, and then use the tools available to isolate the section of the video you want to use.  The tool creates a new link of the shortened video selection that can be copied and pasted into your presentation, also free of advertising and pop-ups.

Copyright Morsel by Diane Konjura

This week I found an article from The Edublogger that was published in 2012, but is an excellent article about copyright, fair use, and creative commons for educators.  It not only explains copyright, fair use and creative commons, but also provides resources to help when needing images, videos, and curriculum.  An important message in this article points out how more and more law firms and organizations are seeking out copyrighted material that is posted publicly and is in violation of copyright.  I encourage teachers to check out this article: The Edublogger: The Educator's Guide to Copyright, Fair Use, and Creative Commons