Be a Star!| How to start your own private channel for your students YouTube has more than 2 billion users! That’s billion with a “b.” While the social media platform is full of videos to entertain, from the popular trick-shot guys known as Dude Perfect, to videos on how to make masks or fix an electrical socket, YouTube has it and more. Now, with educators teaching from their homes, many are looking for ways to connect with their students. Creating video lessons to enhance learning is one more way to engage. But where to put all those lessons? How about a personal, YouTube channel? Creating videos and posting to a YouTube Channel has several benefits including allowing students to view the content at their own pace.
corner for your gmail icon) Click the three-line menu icon in the top left corner to open the navigation panel on the left side of the screen and select "Settings." A new option in the middle of your screen will pop up-click "create a new channel.” Now, you have a channel of your own. Make sure to choose a name that reflects what you’re doing-for example, “Mrs. Smith’s 4th grade class.”
Without an Existing Google Account
If you don’t have a Gmail account, take a minute and set up a free Gmail then follow the steps above.
Securing Your Channel
Benefits of Video Lessons Personalized Feedback
While you can’t be there for your students, you can still provide one-on-one lessons for them, via video. If you have a student struggling with a particular math problem, walk them through it with a video. Personalized feedback with a video can be very helpful in connecting with a student from afar.
Support Visual Learners
For those who need to see things in order to understand, a video can help connect the dots. For younger kids maybe it’s a video of you cooking something while you explain math concepts like halves and wholes and for older students perhaps it’s a video explaining 3-D concepts in math or a lab lesson. Be creative!
Keep Students Engaged
Don’t just use video yourself, ask your students to get in on the action! Have them create videos of themselves reading or explaining concepts so you can see if they’re understanding the material. This gives students, of all ages, a meaningful way to demonstrate knowledge in a way they’ll enjoy-many kids have their own YouTube Channel already so why not let them tap into that skill for education purposes.
How to Create a YouTube Channel
With Existing Google Account
Log into your Google (Gmail account) in your browser. Open a new tab and go to YouTube.com. You should see you’re now logged in to YouTube as well through your Gmail. (look in the top right 14
Maine Educator • COVID-19 Special Edition
Having a channel on a massive world-wide platform doesn’t mean everyone will have access to your videos. You can make your YouTube channel private, allowing only people you invite to the channel to view your videos. Once signed in to your YouTube account, click on the channel name you want to make private. In the channel Settings, under Privacy, there is an option to make the channel videos private. Select the box and save the changes. The channel videos are now private unless you go back in and change that same setting back to public.
Inviting Your Students to See Your Videos
You’re thinking, if my video is private, how will anyone see it? It’s simple, you can invite your students into your virtual lesson with a URL for the video. You then share that URL in an email or in a virtual classroom space. You must have the URL to view the video, so your uploaded videos can’t be found online by random people. To capture the viewable URL that invitees can open without problems, click “Share” under the video and copy the URL that is displayed there. Maine Education Association SUBSCRIBE
