Over the years since YouTube has been around, hundreds and thousands of educational videos have been spawned across YouTube with hundreds of different subjects and in many variety of languages. As a result, YouTube has an educational version of its service, where it provides thousands of proven education videos from a variety of well regarded instructors. Introducing YouTube for Schools.

These videos revolutionized education in that students no longer needed to rely only on teachers and books as they learned. If they missed a lecture, didn’t understand the teacher, students could go home and watch these educational videos and catch up with their studies. Another benefit that raised from these videos is that students didn’t have to be shy to have the “instructor” repeat him/herself. The student could easily rewind the video as many times as they wanted. Given that these videos came from a variety of teachers, students could essentially choose the type of teachers they enjoyed and/or understood the best.

Given that some students are audio or visual learners, educational videos on YouTube was a great benefit, as they allowed students to take advantages of animations and sounds as they learned. It would not be surprising if students saw these videos as a replacement for their textbooks as a means to efficient learning.

Here’s a video that talks about the benefit of online video for learning.

However, many schools tend to block YouTube from the students for the fear of students wasting time online. I cannot blame them; there are lots of videos on YouTube that will definitely waste the students’ time and hamper good education. Given that YouTube is also a social networking site, students can just as easily loose track of time, getting bogged down to commenting and sharing. Unfortunately, blocking YouTube also means loosing access to great, rich, educational videos that can really help the student.

This is where I think such a feature is very good for students and institutions. This educational version of YouTube hides comments and related videos and only displays educational videos. This eliminates all fears the school administrators have while, at the same time, let students engage in the educational videos.

To get started with the YouTube for schools, an administrator or a teacher needs to set up a school account for YouTube by going to youtube.com/schools.

Let us know what you think about this move.