This is Mrs. Lowe tonight. I want to share about how I use YouTube with my Kindergarten students.
First, I have to tell you how much I love YouTube! Kindergarten students have a lot of wonders and I don't always know the answer or the answer has already been perfectly described and recorded by someone else. YouTube gives us nearly immediate answers to many of our wonders. It allows us to access experts in many fields. It is a source of songs, dances, stories and even animated books.
Just this week we got to see the inside of the International Space Station and learn how the astronauts brush their teeth in space!
All of that being said, YouTube is not always an appropriate place for 5 year olds. I believe they should never search for videos themselves. There are MANY links and advertisements that are not child friendly.
In our classroom I always freeze the screen on the SmartBoard or turn it off while I do a YouTube search. This way the students will not see anything inappropriate that may come up.
Once I have found the video I am looking for, and previewed it, I use a website called www.safeshare.tv This website allows me to easily cut and paste a link from YouTube and view it without any of those advertisements or suggested videos at the end of the clip.
This year I have found an another wonderful resource that uses both YouTube and SafeShare. The resource is called Symbaloo.
It is a place where you can store and access your online bookmarks. It is also a great place to share online resources. We are very lucky to have access to a Symbaloo webmix created by the lovely people at #kinderchat and managed by Matt Gomez. The web mix includes links to alphabet songs, interactive books, math games, videos, and much more! We use this site almost daily in our class! You can check it out by following the link.
How do you stay safe on the internet?
No comments:
Post a Comment