January 2020 was an important month for YouTube because it marked the rollout of a number of new changes that will indelibly affect the future of the platform and the people who use it. For teachers, and for schools, these are important changes to be aware of as they look to curate content, upload content, and work with students to do the same. So, here's a quick summary of what you need to know. 

Investigations by the Federal Trade Commission and the New York Attorney General found Google to be guilty of violating the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, (COPPA). It was judged to be guilty of collecting data from kids under 13 and using that data to serve personalized ads to those users. This is a direct violation of COPPA. Google were served a fine of $174m, and, perhaps more importantly, it was compelled to make changes to to YouTube. These changes would make YouTube compliant with the terms of COPPA, but they would also alter the way that YouTube works for its users.

In short, the biggest change is that you now need to choose an audience for the videos you upload to YouTube. More specifically, you have to say whether your video is made for kids, or not made for kids. You can set this option as a channel-wide setting, or make the decision on a case by case basis when you upload your videos. Once YouTube knows the intended audience for a video, it can turn off features like data collection and personalized ads in order to better comply with COPPA.

Well, it might not, but if you mark a channel or video as made for kids, there are some other things you should know about. For instance, your video will no longer autoplay on the YouTube homepage, you can't add cards or end screens, the notification bell is disabled, and your video can't be added to a playlist or to the watch later list. Videos that are marked as made for kids, are also more likely to be promoted alongside other videos that have the same designation, so this could affect your discoverability on YouTube. 

​However, these are just some of the features that are disabled with the made for kids audience setting. You can see the full list here on Google's support page. Playlists are probably the biggest drawback, but there is nothing stopping you adding your videos to a Wakelet collection or to a Google Slides presentation as an alternative. 

This can be a bit of a gray area, but YouTube does have some guidance for you. If children under the age of 13 are the primary audience for your video, then your video should be labelled as made for kids. If children are in your video, or your video has toys, characters, or animation aimed at children, then it should also be labelled made for kids. Songs, stories and poems directed at children are also in this category. More information here. 

Although this can be confusing for some people, ultimately the responsibility as to what choice you make does like with you as the account holder. YouTube says, "As a creator, you know your videos and your audience best, and it is your legal responsibility to comply with COPPA and/or other applicable laws and designate your content accurately. If you fail to categorize your content correctly, there may be consequences on YouTube. Additionally, there may be legal consequences under the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) or other applicable local laws." (Source)

As Amber Bridge said on a recent episode of our podcast, think about the age of your students. If your students are 13 years or older, then you probably don't have a lot to worry about here. You will not need to mark your content as made for kids, because the videos you upload to YouTube for your students are aimed at an audience that is 13 or older. However, if you are an elementary teacher, you may need to think a little harder about this. Are you creating a video for your students or for other teachers? These would be a different audience, and that is absolutely fine because you always have the option of picking and choosing your audience depending on the content of your video.

​For instance, a school YouTube channel may have some classroom videos that fall into the "made for kids" category, and some others that are more directed at parents, so they would be labelled as "not made for kids". It would just depend on the content. All you do is be mindful when uploading your videos and use your best judgement to make sure you comply with the new changes. 

In addition to the video above, Google has some support documents that address most of the issues surrounding the audience settings on YouTube. Those articles are linked below, along with episode 71 of The Edtech Take Out, which also features a conversation around the same topic!

• Frequently asked questions about “made for kids”
• Determining if your content is "made for kids"
• Set your channel or video’s audience

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If you have questions about any of these changes and the impact it has on you or your students, contact your Digital Learning Consultant for more information!

Jonathan Wylie
Digital Learning Consultant
Grant Wood AEA

The YouTube video editor was always a popular tool for teachers. Whether you were editing digital stories or trimming a screencast, the YouTube Editor let you create and edit videos quickly and easily. It also worked great with Chromebooks. However, it was retired by Google in September 2017, and there was really no sign of a resurrection...until now. A brand new video editor is returning to YouTube, and you can try it out today!

First, a word of caution. This is not a finished product. It's (currently) missing a lot of the features from the original editor, and it's buried deep inside of YouTube where they don't make it very easy to find. However, the signs of life are good. The first time you go there, you will be greeted with a splash screen that says,

"We're still adding features, so you can expect to see more appearing in the coming months."

So, where will you find it? Here are some instructions on how to find the new YouTube editor so that you too can jump in and try it out.

1. Log in to YouTube
2. Click your profile icon in the top right-hand corner
3. Click Creator Studio
   
4. Click the blue YouTube Studio Beta link in the top left-hand corner
   
5. Click Videos from the left-hand sidebar to see your videos
   
6. Click on one of your videos
7. Click Editor in the left-hand sidebar to launch the editor
   

 
Like I said, it's not the easiest thing to find right now, but that will probably change over time. Personally I always liked the youtube.com/editor URL that you could use with the old editor, but at the moment that just redirects you to a YouTube support page. Maybe that will also return soon.

Perhaps the best way to see what the new editor is capable of is to see it in action. So, take a look at the video from Flipped Classroom Tutorials below. It will show you how to find the editor and take you through some of the basic functionality of what you can do with it in its current state. At the moment, all you can really do is split and trim clips, or add an end screen, but the promise of more features has me optimistic about what the future holds .

So, are you excited about the new YouTube editor? What features are you hoping to see next, and how will this impact the work you do in your classrooms? Leave a comment below with your hopes and dreams! :)

Thanks to Arcadia Parson for tipping us off about the new editor!

Jonathan Wylie | @jonathanwylie
Digital Learning Consultant, Grant Wood AEA

YouTube is a fantastic resource for teachers. However, there are certain things that we sometimes wish were not visible for our students. Comments are a prefect example. They are frequently unmoderated and contain all kinds of language that we would rather avoid exposing students to. The suggested videos on the sidebar or at the end of a video are another case in point. Then there are the ads. Waiting 30 seconds to view a video is an eternity for some teachers and exposes your students to commercial products you may not want to endorse. So, is there any hope? Indeed there is! Take a look at this list of tools that are guaranteed to give you a distraction free YouTube viewing experience for your classroom.

If you visit viewpure.com and paste in the link to the video you want to watch or share with students, you will instantly be greeted with a clean view that strips out the comments, sidebar and more. You also get a link that you can use to share that specific view with students on Google Classroom, an LMS or by email. If you click the gear for advanced options you can choose the start and end time for your video as well as the option to create a custom URL. They even have a nice bookmarklet you can add to your browser toolbar so that you can clean up videos in one click - no copy and pasting required. Oh, and you get all this for free!

This Chrome extension was built by a teacher, for teachers. It modifies a YouTube URL so that when clicked, you automatically get taken to a full screen version of your video. No sidebar or comments are visible and you get a nice big video player to view your content. As a bonus, you will notice that when you use this extension, the tic tac toe board of videos that you normally see at the end of your video, is also gone. Once the extension is installed, all you do is click it when viewing the video you want to use inside of YouTube. A drop-down menu reveals the modified link for you to copy or preview. Easy, right? The video below has more information. Download the YT Full Fill Chrome extension here.

Watchkin is similar to ViewPure. In fact it does many of the same things so this could come down to a matter of preference. However, it does include a dark theme and full-width option that you don't get in ViewPure. They also have an auto-redirect browser add-on that will automatically redirect any YouTube link you click on to a cleaned up Watchkin version. It takes a little bit of setting up, but could be a worthwhile option. Otherwise, they do have a bookmarklet you can drag to your toolbar, and copying and pasting YouTube URLs also works. 

Installing an adblocker on your browser will often remove all pre-roll ads from YouTube videos. It is a quick and easy solution and is something you basically set and forget. There are adblockers for every modern browser, and several to choose from. Adblock Plus, Adblock and Ublock Origin are some of the better known ones. 

However, be aware that adblockers do more than just block ads on YouTube. They will block ads on every website you visit. Sounds awesome, right?! Well, yes...and no. The internet that we know and love is mostly free for a reason. Ads pay for a lot of the sites that we use on a daily basis. If everyone installed an adblocker, the way we get content from the internet would likely change very quickly. In short, we would have to pay for a lot more of it.

Is it illegal to install an adblocker? No. Does it hurt sites that rely on ad revenue to stay afloat? Yes. I like to think that as educators in the classroom we get a pass on this, however, what you do at home with your personal devices is up to you. Many adblockers let you "whitelist" sites you want to allow ads to be shown on. This could be a good compromise in the free vs paid debate, but regardless of where you stand on this issue, adblockers will block pre-roll ads on YouTube.

Ever wish you could trim a little off the beginning or end of a video? Well, you can. Tubechop.com was created for just that purpose. Simply paste in the URL of your video, drag the sliders to include the content you need, and then click CHOP IT to lose the parts that you don't need. The resulting video is shareable by a link, and can be embedded with an HTML embed code. You also get a pretty good distraction free viewing experience. Try it for yourself at tubechop.com.

~Jonathan Wylie, Technology Consultant, Grant Wood AEA (@jonathanwylie)

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