12 Reasons to Upload Videos to YouTube

Video content has increasingly become a mainstay of lesson planning. Teachers have come to realize that their own personalized content typically trumps videos they might find online. Since the pandemic, more and more teachers have become comfortable creating their own videos for a variety of purposes and with a variety of tools.

Often these tools – like Screencastify or Loom or Google Meet – push the recording to Google Drive or have a sharing link from within the program. While these methods of storing and sharing videos are convenient, there are several reasons why you should take the extra few steps to upload your videos to YouTube.

1. Increase accessibility by enabling Closed Captions. Any YouTube video automatically generates Closed Captions; the AI is getting better and better at producing accurate captions. You can even go a step further and edit the Subtitles to make them more correct. (#7 in image below)
2. Choose the playback speed. Save time by speeding the video up to double time. Accommodate learners by slowing the video to 0.25 times if needed. Increments from 0.25 to 2.0 are available but you can also set a custom time which is then available across your videos. (#8 in image below)
3. Those videos can still be as safe and private as they are in your Google Drive. Choose “Unlisted” instead of “Public” when you upload to YouTube and then only those with the link will be able to find and view your video.
4. You can easily post a YouTube link almost anywhere.
5. YouTube links embed wonderfully into Google tools like Slides, Google Forms, Draw and Sites. In fact, when you upload YouTube to a Google tool, there are no advertisements or other distractions. Furthermore, YouTube embeds well into other platforms like Seesaw and Wakelet.
6. You can curate your YouTube videos into Playlists. You can then share a link to the whole playlist and viewers can choose which videos to watch and the order they wish to watch. (#2 in image below)
7. Automatically generate a time-stamped transcript (in the menu under the three dots). This makes searching for content super easy. Simply find the words in the transcript (which appears to the right of your video) – when you click the words, it takes you to that exact spot in the video. (#1 in image below)
8. Alternatively, you can create custom chapter links in the description of your video.
   • Your first timestamp in the list must start with 00:00. 
   • Your video needs at least three timestamps listed in ascending order.
   • The minimum length for video chapters is 10 seconds.
9. Don’t need the whole video? In YouTube, you can generate a clip, which is a link to a specific section within a video. You need to choose a start and stop time and give the clip a name. You can then post or share this clip anywhere such as in Google Classroom or your website. (#3 in image below)
10. Alternatively, you can share a YouTube link with a specific start time. Right-click on the video and chose “copy video URL at current time”. (or #8 in image below)
11. You can add companion content to your video right in the description. Consider adding a link to a student note catcher or your presentation slide deck. I always like to post materials here as a backup. This is also a good solution for students who might not be able to join your Google Classroom because they are from outside your domain. (#6 in image below)
    • As an aside… It is crucial that you teach your students how to watch a video, especially if you want them to take notes. Model how to stop, pause, rewind, adjust the speed…the majority of students won’t figure this out unless we teach them.
12. Add the edpuzzle YouTube extension. With one click you are in edpuzzle where you can clip your video and/or add quiz content or additional commentary. (#4 in image below)

Google Sites Mini Tutorials

Many schools in my school district are expanding their thinking about student portfolios and showcasing student learning. This includes the learning journey and not just the final product. We’ve especially encouraged this portfolio work for students involved in our #PrairieRosePossibilities Projects. I often suggest several platforms suitable for this portfolio showcase, such as Seesaw, Wakelet, Padlet and Google Sites. Many project leaders and teachers are choosing Google Sites; they realize how students can not only benefit from having a living portfolio but also that students will also gain valuable website creation skills along the way.

As a result, one of the most common requests that I get as an Instructional Coach is to help classes build their first Google Site. I’ve done this at least a half dozen times in recent months and I’ve often thought about how great it would be to clone these lessons. I’ve finally made this happen so here are a variety of asynchronous mini-tutorial formats to choose from:

Google Sites Self-Paced Slide Deck: bit.ly/googlesitesasynch Complete with an interactive table of contents, use this slide deck for self-paced Google Site creation, or use the slide deck as your own guide for teaching students how to create a Google Site. Pages feature short embedded Google Sites Mini-Tutorial videos.

Google Sites Mini Tutorials YouTube Playlist: bit.ly/kanngooglesites. Just like it sounds – an ever-growing set of mini-tutorials for “how-to” in Google Sites. Most videos are 1-2 minutes long.

PD Training Choice Boards: bit.ly/prsd8PDgooglesites Part of a series of PD Training Choice Boards. Find the full set here . Topics include: Engagement and Formative Assessment, Digital Citizenship & Fake News, Chrome & Chromebooks, Seesaw, Social Emotion Learning, Google Classroom, Google Meet, Hybrid Learning

I’ve spent much of my career as a high school Humanities teacher. I’ve taught thousands of students how to write paragraphs and essays and responses of all types. Despite this, I think that we do our high school students an injustice if we send them out of high school knowing how to compose an essay (a skill which many will not use in their futures in the form we taught them) but not knowing how to create a website (a skill which many will have reason to use in their future professional or personal lives).

Feel free to use these resources to “clone” yourself next time you need to help a colleague or a class learn how to make a Google Site.