Boclips for Teachers is Shutting Down

For couple of years Boclips was one of my favorite alternatives to YouTube for teachers and students. Unfortunately, their business model seems to have shifted over the years and appears to be now focused solely on selling pricey subscriptions to schools and other institutions. I surmise that because late last week I received an email from Boclips announcing that they were discontinuing Boclips for Teachers which was the way that individual teachers could use the videos in the Boclips library. 

If you've been using Boclips for Teachers, you probably already know that much of the content that is on Boclips can also be found on YouTube. And if you were using Boclips simply to avoid the distractions associated with YouTube, you should try one of these distraction-free ways to use YouTube in your classroom. 

Three Ways to Share Videos Without Using YouTube

The days of heated arguments about whether or not YouTube should be accessible in school seem to be behind us. That doesn't mean that YouTube is always the best option for hosting and sharing videos in your school. In fact, just yesterday someone emailed me to ask for suggestions on how her students can share their book trailer videos without having to upload them to YouTube. 

There are three options that I generally recommend whenever I'm asked for alternatives to using YouTube to host and share students' video projects. 

• Google Drive: this is probably the best option for teachers and students who have Google Workspace accounts. 
  
  
• OneDrive: If you and your students have Microsoft accounts, OneDrive offers a convenient way to share video files. I particularly like that you can set an expiration date for access and a password for access. 
  
  
• Flipgrid: An often overlooked feature of Flipgrid is to use it as a place for students to share videos that they have made outside of the Flipgrid app. You and your students can upload videos to share with each other. 

In this short video I demonstrate all of the above methods for sharing videos without using YouTube. 

How to Share Videos Through OneDrive

A few days ago I shared directions for sharing videos through Google Drive. Microsoft's OneDrive has a similar capability that in some ways is actually better than using Google Drive. In OneDrive you can share videos via unique URLs that you can password protect. Additionally, in OneDrive you can set an expiration date on the URLs that you use to share videos with others. In the following video I demonstrate how to share videos through OneDrive.


Applications for Education
Sharing videos through OneDrive can be a good alternative to using YouTube to share videos with students and their parents.

ClassHook Adds Pause Prompts to Personal Clips

ClassHook is one of my favorite alternatives to searching on YouTube for educational videos. A few months ago ClassHook added a feature called Pause Prompts that enables you to add discussion questions to the videos that you find through their site. Then last month ClassHook added a new playlist feature called Personal Clips. As of today, those two features now work together.

Today, ClassHook announced that you can now add Pause Prompts to the videos that you have saved in your Personal Clips playlists. Users of the free ClassHook plan can add up to five Pause Prompts to each of the videos in their Personal Clips playlists. Users of the paid ClassHook plan can add as many Pause Prompts as they like.




For those who haven't tried ClassHook, it hosts and indexes video clips from popular movies and television shows to use to teach short lessons. ClassHook lets you search according to grade level, subject, clip length, standard, and decade of video production.

Lots of New Videos Added to One of My Favorite Alternatives to YouTube

Back in January I learned about a great alternative to YouTube called BoClips. BoClips offers millions of educational videos from well-known producers. In the last five months it has quickly become one of my top five alternatives to searching on YouTube for educational videos. This week BoClips announced the addition of more great video content.

BoClips now includes videos from PBS Digital Studios, Epic History TV, Smithsonian, and Nature League. The PBS Digital Studios content includes videos from It's Okay To Be Smart and many of the other popular PBS Digital Studios YouTube channels.

Watch the following short video to learn how you can find and share videos on BoClips.

ClassHook Offers a New Way to Organize Educational Videos

ClassHook is quickly becoming one my favorite tools for teaching with video clips. In fact, I recently included ClassHook's Pause Prompts feature in my Best of the Web presentation at the Texas Library Association's annual conference. ClassHook recently added another convenient feature for teachers.

ClassHook's latest feature is one they're calling Personal Clips. Personal Clips are the videos that you find on the Web outside of the ClassHook environment as well as those that you find within ClassHook. In other words, they're playlists or bookmark lists of videos that you find around the web to use within the ClassHook environment. By using Personal Clips you could organize a set of videos that draws from Next Vista for Learning, YouTube, and Vimeo all in one place.

Applications for Education
As ClassHook pointed out in their announcement of the Personal Clips feature, Personal Clips could be a good way to have a set of videos cued-up and ready to display in your classroom without jumping from tab to tab or site to site.

It's not ready yet, but ClassHook says that soon you will be able to use the Pause Prompts feature with all Personal Clips regardless of the source of the video. In the meantime you can use Pause Prompts with videos that you find through the ClassHook platform. Pause Prompts are discussion prompts that appear while your chosen video is playing. The Pause Prompts automatically pause your video until you're ready to advance it. Learn more about ClassHook's Pause Prompts in this video that I made six weeks ago.

Boclips - Millions of Ad-free Educational Videos

Today at the BETT Show Bethany Beaudrie introduced me to a new educational video provider called Boclips for Teachers. Boclips hosts more than two million educational videos from more than 100 vetted video producers. You'll probably recognize many of the names in the list of videos producers. Two of the producers that I noticed right away were Crash Course and TED-Ed.

In Boclips for Teachers you can search for videos according to keyword. When you find a video or videos that you like you can put them into a collection in your Boclips account. Boclips doesn't use the YouTube video player like many other educational video sites. That is significant because it means that if your school blocks YouTube you will still be able to access all of the content available through Boclips for Teachers.

Boclips for Teachers is still in beta. As part of that beta Boclips is asking teachers to complete short surveys in exchange for unlimited, lifetime access to the Boclips library.

Applications for Education
Boclips for Teachers could become a great alternative to displaying YouTube videos in your classroom. The vetting of video producers who contribute to Boclips is significant because it means that when you search in Boclips for Teachers you won't find "related" videos that aren't actually related to your search.

Try Flipgrid as an Alternative to a Classroom YouTube Channel

Whenever I lead a workshop or webinar about classroom video projects I always talk about the importance of respectfully sharing students' videos online. That often leads into discussions about YouTube privacy settings and alternatives to using YouTube to publish students' videos. Recently, I've started share the idea of using Flipgrid to have students share videos that they have made.

Flipgrid is known for its built-in video recording tool. Many people overlook the option to have students upload videos that they have made on other services like WeVideo and iMovie. As long as their videos are less than five minutes long, students can upload them to topics that you create in Flipgrid. Watch my video to see how students can upload videos to Flipgrid topics.


Flipgrid recently introduced "guest mode." Guest mode enables you to invite parents to view a specific Flipgrid topic and students' responses without giving parents access an entire Flipgrid grid. Watch this video to learn how to enable guest mode on a Flipgrid topic.


By combining the upload function in Flipgrid with the guest mode in Flipgrid you can create a private space for students to share their videos and parents to see those videos without exposing the videos to the entirety of the web.

Note, this post is intended for those people who cannot access YouTube in their schools or would prefer not to use it. If you can use YouTube in your school, the "unlisted" setting in YouTube will let you hide videos from public search results. 

Learn more about student video production and sharing in my upcoming course, Video Projects for Every Classroom. 

More Than 40 Alternatives to YouTube - Best of 2016

As I usually do during this week, I'm taking some time off to relax, ski, and work on some long-term projects for the next year. This week I will be re-publishing the most popular posts of 2016. 

3 Tips for Using YouTube Videos in Your Classroom was one of the most popular posts of the week on FreeTech4Teachers.com. Those tips are all well and good if you can access YouTube in your classroom. If you cannot access YouTube in your classroom then you will want to consult my list of more than 40 alternatives to YouTube. Over the years I've updated the list as new sites emerged and old ones shut down. The list includes a search engine for videos that are not on YouTube.

If you do have access to YouTube in your school, consider using tools like ViewPure and Watchkin to display videos without showing the "related" videos comments from YouTube.

YouTube has some great hidden features for teachers. So if you do have access to YouTube in your school, take a look at YouTube, It's Not Just Cats & Khan Academy. 

More Than 40 Alternatives to YouTube

3 Tips for Using YouTube Videos in Your Classroom was one of the most popular posts of the week on FreeTech4Teachers.com. Those tips are all well and good if you can access YouTube in your classroom. If you cannot access YouTube in your classroom then you will want to consult my list of more than 40 alternatives to YouTube. Over the years I've updated the list as new sites emerged and old ones shut down. The list includes a search engine for videos that are not on YouTube.

If you do have access to YouTube in your school, consider using tools like ViewPure and Watchkin to display videos without showing the "related" videos comments from YouTube.

Rate Some Educational Videos and Inspire Your Students

Next Vista for Learning is my favorite place for students and teachers to share the educational videos that they create. Throughout the year Next Vista hosts a number of video creation contests for students and teachers. The latest contest just wrapped-up and now Next Vista is looking for a little help in picking the winners.

The latest Next Vista contest has ten finalists spread across two categories; student submissions and teacher-student collaborative submissions. If you have some time to watch the finalists in one or all three categories, please do so. Consider watching the videos with your students and asking them to vote for their favorite videos. Judging the finalists could be a great way to inspire your students to create their own videos. Similarly, watching the finalist videos might give you some ideas for a video project of your own. Click here for the judging form and list of finalist videos. All votes are due by midnight on February 14, 2016.

40+ Alternatives to YouTube

One of the most popular posts that I have ever written on FreeTech4Teachers.com was a list of alternatives to YouTube. Over the years I've updated the list as new sites emerged and old ones shut down. I updated the list again last night. You can see it here or here.

If you do have access to YouTube in your school, consider using tools like ViewPure and Watchkin to display videos without showing the "related" videos comments from YouTube.

About Downloading YouTube Videos...

These kittens don't violate YouTube's
TOS and we shouldn't either :)

This morning I received a Facebook message from someone looking for a recommendation for a tool to use to download videos from YouTube. I get that question fairly often. Usually it is asked by people who are working in schools that block access to YouTube. I used to make recommendations for tools that will download YouTube videos, I don't anymore and removed all of the old posts that did mention those tools.

Downloading videos from YouTube through a third-party service is a violation of section 4 of YouTube's terms of service. I don't want students thinking they can download anything they want without concern for copyright or a company's terms of service. Therefore, I think I should model for students the behavior of respecting copyright and a company's terms of service.

In addition to the copyright and TOS violations, the other concern with downloading YouTube videos through a third-party tool is the varying quality and reliability of those tools. That is of particular concern when you start to dive into the free services promising that function because while they may work, they may also offer a bunch of malware to go along with the video file.

I understand the tough position that teachers find themselves in when YouTube is blocked in their schools and there is a video on YouTube that they would really like to share with their students. I've been there, it is frustrating. My recommendation at this time is to talk to your administrators about using YouTube for Schools if you cannot convince them to allow teachers to access YouTube directly.

Dozens of Alternatives to YouTube

Over the last few years I've seen more schools opening up access to YouTube, at least to teachers, than I had in the past. YouTube for Schools has partially contributed to that trend. Tools like ViewPure and Watchkin have made using YouTube videos in schools a little less scary too. All that said, there are still lots of schools that block access to YouTube. That's why a few years ago I started to maintain a list of alternatives to YouTube.

This week I updated my list of alternatives to YouTube. I removed some options that have disappeared and edited information about sites that have changed. The updated list and video search engine can be found here.

Updated - A Search Engine for Videos Not On YouTube

A few weeks ago I created a Google Custom Search Engine for videos that are not hosted on YouTube. You can find the search engine on this page. This evening I updated that search engine to include four more resources. The alternatives to YouTube that I added to the search engine were the National Film Board of Canada, the Economist videos, The Atlantic videos, and National Geographic Kids videos.

You can test the updated search engine below. It is permanently hosted here.

A YouTube-free Video Search Engine

Yesterday, I shared a list of 43 educational alternatives to YouTube. At the suggestion of quite a few people, I put all of those sites into a custom search engine and I have embedded it into this page. Give it a try the next time that you're looking for educational videos that are not hosted on YouTube.

Take a look at the Google Slides presentation below to learn how to create your own custom search engine.

43+ Alternatives to YouTube

Excellent educational content can be found on YouTube. However, not every teacher can access YouTube in his or her classroom. That's why a few years ago I compiled a big list of alternatives to YouTube. Over the years some of those sites have shut-down, started charging a fee, or have switched into another market. So this evening I went through and eliminated some sites from the list and added a few new ones. My favorite five alternatives to YouTube are listed below. You can see the complete list here. If you have a suggestion for an alternative to YouTube, please let me know.

1. Next Vista is a nonprofit, advertising-free video sharing site run by Google Certified Teacher Rushton Hurley. Next Vista has three video categories. The Light Bulbs category is for videos that teach you how to do something and or provides an explanation of a topic. The Global Views video category contains videos created to promote understanding of cultures around the world. The Seeing Service video category highlights the work of people who are working to make a difference in the lives of others. Watch this interview I did with Rushton to learn more about Next Vista.

2. PBS Video offers videos from the most popular shows including Frontline, NOVA, Nature, and American Experience. For the younger crowd, PBS Kids offers videos as well. If you're not sure what you're looking for, but you think PBS has an appropriate video you can search the PBS Video center by topic.

3. Explore.org produces and hosts high-quality documentary films and photographs. The films and images focus on exploring the world and the work of non-profit organizations around the world. The films and images are organized by location and by charitable and or environmental cause. Explore.org is funded in part by the Annenburg Foundation.

4. The National Film Board of Canada offers many excellent videos that appeal to a broad audience.

5. One of the first things you'll notice about Vimeo is the image quality of the videos. The image and sound quality of the videos on Vimeo is far superior to many of those found on YouTube. Vimeo has all of the sharing options found on YouTube, but in a much cleaner and easier to use interface.

MIT Video - More Than 10,000 Educational Videos

Last night I stumbled upon this video of David Breashears presenting at the Cambridge Science Festival. The video is hosted by MIT Video which I either had never seen before or had completely forgotten about (a real possibility after 6500+ blog posts).

MIT Video is a giant collection of more than 10,000 educational videos organized into more than 150 channels. The largest channel is the Open Courseware channel that contains more than 2,300 lectures from MIT's open courses.

All of the videos are either MIT productions or videos approved by editors at MIT Video. Only people with MIT email addresses are allowed to contribute to the collection. Some videos are hosted by MIT Video while others are from YouTube.

Applications for Education
If you're looking for educational videos to use to supplement your instruction in your high school or undergraduate courses, it will be well worth your time to search through MIT Video.

The Best of Next Vista for Learning

I've written about Next Vista for Learning in the past and I mention it more often than not in my presentations because I think that it is a fantastic place for students and teachers to showcase their video projects. One of the ways that students and teachers can showcase their works is by making submissions to Next Vista's frequent video contests.

This afternoon I mentioned to Rushton Hurley, founder of Next Vista, that I had shown one of the winning videos from a recent contest during a presentation and he replied with a list of all of the videos tagged as "finalists" from their contests. Here is the list of 53 student and teacher produced videos that qualified as contest finalists over the last couple of years. . Like all Next Vista videos, these videos teach a short lesson of some type. I've embedded two of my favorites below.





Applications for Education
Students creating videos to teach lessons to other students is a great basis for a video project. Whether your looking for ideas for a project or your looking for a place to share your students' video projects, Next Vista for Learning is a site that you should have bookmarked.

UMBC Webinar Follow-up

This afternoon I had the great pleasure of presenting a webinar on behalf of the University of Maryland at Baltimore County (disclosure, they advertise on my blog). One of the questions from the webinar audience was about alternatives to YouTube. To that question I responded with this list of 47 Alternatives to YouTube as well as the suggestion to visit Watch Know Learn. And as I usually do after a webinar or workshop, I have embedded the slides from the webinar below.

Discovery, discussion, demonstration umbc

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