September 11, 2014
YouTube is undoubtedly one of the most popular video hosting platforms in history. The stats released by its administration a few months ago are just mind blowing. With more than 1 billion monthly visitors and over 6 billion hours of video being watched each month (which equals almost an hour for every person on Earth) and an average of 100 hours of video uploaded every minute, YouTube sets a record of being the first audio visual media with the largest reach ever.
As such, YouTube is definitely a treasure trove for us in education. It provides us with a varied and rich source of videos to use in class with students. However, searching for educational content on a platform that hosts millions of videos is akin to looking for a needle in a haystack. This is why curated lists such as the one below proves helpful especially in helping busy teachers have easy and instant access to handy YouTube channels that feature interesting educational content relevant for classroom use. To this end, I compiled this list that comprises some of the popular channels on YouTube that teachers and students can use for educational purposes.
1- Crash Course
In this channel, teachers John and Hank Green provide some excellent video explanations and tutorials on a variety of topics related to World History, Biology, Literature, Ecology, Chemistry, and US History.
2- TED Ed
You are probably already familiar with this channel. TED Ed features some of the best video lessons created by talented educators and in collaboration with professional animators.
3- Shots of Awe
With over 151 thousand subscribers, Shots of Awe is one of the most popular YouTube channels for academics, researchers, students and science lovers. Each week, Jason Silva uploads a video that takes viewers into the miraculous depths of human knowledge. He covers topics related to the evolution of human intelligence, complex systems of society, technology and human existence and discusses the truth and beauty of science in a form of existential Jazz.
4- Asap Science
Asap Science is a Youtube channel dedicated for everything related to science and scientific concepts. It mixes fun and learning in such a way that the explanation of scientific phenomena becomes a pleasure to watch.
5- SciShow
SciShow is another awesome YouTube channel I repeatedly featured here in this blog. SciShow contains videos that discuss scientific and historical concepts.
6- Keith Hughes
Keith's videos are really fun to watch. His channel HipHughes History features a "a series of upbeat, personable and educational lectures designed for students and lifelong learners. Videos primarily focus on US History and Politics but span across World History and general interest. So sit back and enjoy the antics of HipHughes as he melds multimodality into a learning experience."
7- Khan Academy
The popular Khan Academy channel provides video lessons on a variety of topics and across different disciplines namely science, math, physics, biology and many more
8- NASA
NASA's YouTube channel includes hundreds of videos on space exploration, scientific discovery, and aeronautics research.
9- Smarter EveryDAY
Smarter EveryDAY is a wonderful channel where students get to learn about science through explanations of common sense phenomena.
10- Mental Floss
This is similar to Shots of Awe I mentioned above. It is a weekly show where John provides some excellent videos on challenging topics and big questions.
11- Veritasium
"Veritasium is a science video blog featuring experiments, expert interviews, cool demos, and discussions with the public about everything science."
