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Alternatives to YouTube

Richard Byrne, at Practical Ed Tech, is one of the educational tech bloggers that I highly recommend you follow. This dude has provided me with an abundance of knowledge that has gotten me to heights I have reached. Wait a minute, scratch that last statement. His blog posts "should have" gotten me to great heights, but I digress. Anyways, this recent post caught my eye. 

If you've ever tried finding educational videos on YouTube, you know that it can lead you down a rabbit hole. Dear Richard has found some alternatives for us! What a guy? Here are my three faves plus a fantastic tool to eliminate ads and comments from appearing on YouTube videos.

 Boclips
I'm a huge fan of using videos to hook and engage students because let's be honest here, not all of our lessons are brag worthy. Am I right? Sometimes, we need all the help we can get. This is where Boclips comes into play. The videos are safe, relevant, age-appropriate and Boclips claims to have the largest library of educational videos in the world! Now that's brag worthy. It's a paid service, BUT sign up by June 30, 2019 and get a full year FREE.
This site offers a safe place for students and teachers to share videos with other students and teachers. All videos are intended to teach short lessons. Here's a student created video about email etiquette that happens to be one of Richard's favorites, therefore it's one of mine as well.

 ClassHook
ClassHook is a site that includes video clips from movies and television shows. But get this, they can be used to teach short lessons. I absolutely love this website. I got the chills when I found this math video featuring Abbot and Costello.

 Our friend, Mr. Byrne, created this lovely screencast explaining a new feature that allows teachers to build discussion questions into the videos found on ClassHook. I know what you're thinking, I know.

ViewPure
How would you feel if you could watch YouTube videos without ads and comments? I don't know about you, but pulling up a YouTube video in front of a class full of  students is always a scary moment where time seems to stand still. YouTube also plays the next video automatically at the end of any video that I am watching, which is can also be a life changing moment. It's for that reason that I'm sharing ViewPure. Follow these steps to see for yourself.

Step 1: Find a YouTube video you like.
Step 2: Paste the URL into the field on the homepage that says "Enter YouTube URL or search term..."
Step 3: Click Purify and enjoy.
Take the tour for more information.
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