Pinky's Ed Tech Favorites

biology review

4/2/2019

Well, it’s almost review season. Final exams, EOCs, and more are approaching! We like to help with that.

In 2017, we made a biology GIF review for class discussion. We still think it’s pretty awesome; you can check it out here.

In 2018, we made a video designed for students with some study tips.

But this year, 2019, we’ve really extended ourselves because we will be releasing a MEGA REVIEW VIDEO on Sunday, April 14th! Yes, it’s called Stroll Through the Playlist. While it’s way longer than our regular videos---as our regular videos are never over 10 minutes---it is a great way to refresh your memory of major concepts and vocabulary. It can also be a great indicator of whether you may want to re-watch the full content video for a topic or do some more in-depth studying.

One thing that is especially exciting is that we’re going to try using the YouTube Premiere feature! This means that if you join the video link at the exact time that the video premieres (4/14/2019- Sunday- at 7:30 pm CT), you’ll watch it live with us, and you can participate in the live chat typing window if you’d like.

This graphic has some info about YouTube Premiere:

A few additional things to know:

If you subscribe to our channel and have your notifications on, you’ll be notified of the premiere starting.
Once the premiere starts, it has a 2 minute countdown before the video actually plays. The live-chat typing window will be available beforehand. If you want to participate in the chat typing window, you will have to be sure you are logged into your YouTube account.
On a computer, the live chat will show on the right. On a mobile device, you'll see the "live chat" option underneath the video near the 'share' button.
At 7:30 pm CT, the video will play live. You can’t fast forward in it, because it’s playing live, but you can go backwards or pause it. If you join late, you’ll join where it’s playing live, but you can go back in the video if you want to.
This does NOT involve a webcam at all.
Feel free to provide us feedback or ask a quick question in the live chat typing window while the video is playing! If you have a longer question, you may want to post it as a regular YouTube comment as it will give us more time to respond. The chat window can move fast so we may not be able to get to everything.
The video becomes a normal video after playing live, and the link doesn’t change.
Here's the video link: https://youtu.be/7xeFP0SEDdc

Keep in mind this is our first time to try out the new YouTube Premiere feature. We love trying new things, and we’re sure there may be some unexpected hiccups along the way. But, of course, that’s how we all grow. :)

Hope to see you on April 14th at 7:30 pm central on our Amoeba Sisters YouTube Channel!

Edits as an edutuber

1/8/2019

[Additional text added March 2019]

We have a lot of gratitude for YouTube. As edu creators, it allows us to publish our video content and reach others. It allows us to build a community. And it allows others to contribute subtitles in different languages.

There are some challenges we face as edu YouTubers though. EDITING. Sometimes, after we publish a video, we receive helpful feedback that a clarification- or even an error- needs to be addressed. We are really grateful for this kind of feedback, because it helps us grow as educators. We make mistakes, but we have worked hard to cultivate our growth mindset so that we can learn from those mistakes and get even better!

And we want to model that for kids too, because we think that is an important life skill. Which, is why, fixing our mistakes is very important.

The only problem is that YouTube has limited ability to edit videos, and in 2016, they removed the ability to make new annotations (much to the dismay of many edu YouTubers). Also, on 1/15/2019, all existing annotations will be permanently deleted. The "cards" feature which was designed to replace the "annotations" feature unfortunately doesn't have the ability to make clarifications or address issues. So how do we handle this?

Most of the time, we are addressing a clarification or smaller scale mistake. It might be a typo. It may relate to the way we used a vocabulary word. It could be a single incorrect statement in the audio or the way we pronounced a vocabulary word. It may be related to an exception---science has a lot of exceptions! We consider something a clarification or smaller scale mistake if it does not affect the full video, but may affect a statement or component of the video that should be addressed.

So how do we handle those clarifications or mistakes? You will find it as a pinned comment! That means, it will show as the very first comment underneath the YouTube video. That allows it be front and center, and it is a popular method that many edu creators use to address those clarifications or mistakes. We remake videos every once in a while as our art and scripts improve. When we remake a video, we check the pinned comment of the old video to make sure to address those clarifications or mistakes from the past. And, don't worry, unless there is a major issue with an old video---we do not delete old videos. We want people to know how we have improved with lots and lot of practice!
[Added March 2019: YouTube now allows small clip-outs of video portions even on videos with high view counts. We have used this feature on a few older videos, and it's explained on the pinned comment for the video]

If you are an educator, we highly recommend checking out the "pinned" comment on our videos! Please also share this with students, because we want students to see that we do make mistakes. We want students to see how we handle mistakes, and we want students to feel empowered to keep going when they make mistakes too.

Unfortunately, if it's a major error that affects the main concept of the video, we remove the video and re-publish the video. It has been extremely rare, and it's definitely frustrating to do as a creator, because the link to the video is destroyed when you remove a video. We take a lot of effort to try to avoid this by double checking our facts before releasing a video. You can see our factual references in our expanded video details.

If there is no issue with a video (that we have been made aware of), we often pin supplemental information or links in our pinned comment.

As always, we thank our viewers for helping us grow as edu creators! :)

The ads you see on YouTube, Websites, searches, etc

8/20/2018

Ever wish you had more control over the types of ads that show up on YouTube videos, Google searches, or many websites? Your Google ad settings allow you to make some changes to how ads are personalized- or even opt out of ad personalization. https://adssettings.google.com

For those of you that love edu YouTube videos, realize that the ads you see on YouTube are based on this ad personalization. Definitely worthwhile to check this out!

Power of YOuTube EDU Playlists

7/31/2018

As you may know, we have multiple YouTube playlists that can be very useful for students. Playlists allow videos to be organized and easily linked on a class website or LMS. We have our popular "Amoeba Sisters Biology Playlist" which features all of our up to date biology videos. We have many playlists by category (example: "Cell Structure and Function"). We even have playlists organized by reporting category, which can be especially useful for Texas teachers.

But what if these playlists lack certain videos that you want your students to see? Or they include too much? Or you want the order of the videos to match your own course? Well, you can create your own YouTube playlists! Since these are online YouTube playlists that use our YouTube videos directly from our channel, it's not violating any of our terms of use when you create a YouTube playlist.

Just click in the areas circle in red above to make your own playlist!

Once you create a YouTube playlist, it will ask you to title it. You can make it completely public (which would be searchable), unlisted (people need the link to see it), or private (just for you). You can continue to add videos to it (including any edu video---not just Amoeba Sisters videos) and reorder the videos in the playlist.

On many websites and platforms, playlists can even be embedded where they will look nice such as this one below! Here are instructions for how to embed a YouTube playlist (a little different than embedding an individual YouTube video).

Don't forget to encourage students to create their own study YouTube playlists for content that is challenging to them. Want some more YouTube tips? See our other post.

tips for our youtube viewers

7/1/2017

For the most part, we love YouTube as a platform for our videos. YouTube allows us to host our videos and build a community. We thought we'd share some YouTube tips for our viewers that we've learned along the way.

Before we start, however, we want to mention the role of educational videos on YouTube. Just like most educational strategies or resources, our educational videos are a tool---and like all tools---it is how they are used that determines their effectiveness. We have a video with 3 creative ways to use our videos that you may find useful! And now for some tips...

1. Restricted Mode in YouTube
Are you an educator or parent concerned about inappropriate videos or comments in YouTube? Did you know there is a restricted mode that you can easily turn on so that these will not appear? In fact, an institution's network administrator can turn this on for an entire institution (like a school district). More info here: support.google.com/youtube/answer/174084?co=GENIE.Platform%3DDesktop&hl=en

For young children, there is an app called "YouTube Kids" for Apple and Android which limits what is shown. But hooray--- you can find us on there!

2. Turn off the Pop-Up Annotations
Annotations are the pop-up messages that YouTube creators can put in their videos. Note: Annotations are not the same thing as advertisements. Sometimes annotations are helpful pieces of information or links that the creator has added, but in some videos you watch, they may be distracting in the classroom. In May 2017, YouTube stopped the ability for creators to make new annotations, but all the annotations already present will remain. You can turn off pop up annotations using the sequence in the screenshot below!

3. Captions
Many educational YouTube videos have captions. We do, too, for all of our videos! If you click the CC button at the bottom right of the video, you can see the captions in English. Captions are important to us for accessibility. Find any typos? On our contact us page, we have a form you can fill out for any corrections.

4. Free Music from YouTube to Download and Use in Your Creations
It can be tough to find royalty free music when you or your students are creating that you can place directly into your video creations. Awesome music for video projects is offered by the YouTube Audio library. You can preview them all directly on the website before downloading! www.youtube.com/audiolibrary/music

5. View a YouTube Video Transcript
Want to see the entire YouTube transcript? By clicking the three dots at the bottom right of the YouTube video (see screenshot below), you can click "open transcript." The entire video transcript will open at the right. Once the transcript appears at the right, you will even have the option to allow it to show with the timestamps (default) or not show timestamps. Typo with our transcript? On our contact us page, we have a form you can fill out for any corrections.

6. Start a YouTube Video from a Specific Time

Click "Share" underneath the YouTube video, and you will have the option to type in the time that you want the video to start. This is really helpful if you are an educator and only want to show your class a quick segment of a video that is midway in the video. After selecting and typing in the time, you will notice the link changes to include that start time. This link can now be bookmarked, and it will play the video from that specific point.

*BONUS TIP Added August 2018: Want more control over the ads that play in YouTube?

Ever wish you had more control over the types of ads that show up on YouTube videos? Your Google ad settings allow you to make some changes to how ads are personalized- or even opt out of ad personalization- and this goes for those ads you see in YouTube as well. https://adssettings.google.com

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About This Page

This page features some of Pinky's favorite instructional technology websites, apps, online resources, response systems, and other tools. Please always read the terms and privacy policy of any technology tool that you plan to use in the classroom.
Disclosure? If we share a tool or website on this page, it's because we like it and find it useful. We are not endorsed by these tools, and we are not affiliates of the tools on this page. If our disclosure changes, we'll update it here.

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