How do I get credited with my name as the translator? Or remain anonymous?
We greatly appreciate the volunteers from the community that have spent time translating the video transcript. On our Google Form (the link to it is at the top of this page), you will note that there is an option to remain anonymous or to be credited. If you wish to be credited, the form will ask how you would like the credit to look. We also ask if you would like us to place a credit in the video details (which you can see when you click "show more" under a video) or if you would like to place a credit line yourself in the subtitles you submit (at the beginning or the end), or BOTH.

How do I see what translations exist for one of your videos?
Go to any of our videos on our YouTube channel. Once our video is playing, click the gear icon and click "subtitles" to see all available languages. 

I now made and submitted subtitles on your form linked at the top of this post. What happens now?
Once a week, we go into the form and check to see if there are any contributed subtitles. We scan with Google translate and if they follow along the original script, we publish them on the YouTube video. This will allow anyone viewing the video to see the translated subtitles. If you selected to be credited on the Google form, we will place the credit in the way you listed it on the form. They will be permanently available unless you choose to have us remove them, which you can choose at any time. 

Do you allow dubbing of your videos?
Unfortunately, our videos cannot be dubbed due to our licensing. Our videos can only be hosted on our YouTube channel. Please do not download them and upload them somewhere else as this violates our terms of use as well as YouTube's Terms of Service.

I used YouTube's old community-contributed subtitle feature prior to September 2020, and opted for YouTube to credit my name, and now I don't see my name anymore?
We brought this up to YouTube that the names they had listed with this feature stopped appearing a few months after the feature was discontinued. While only YouTube had access to those names and the feature, please contact us as we can ask YouTube on your behalf. We also can manually type in a credit in our video description if YouTube is unable to restore it.

What about translating your comics or GIFs?
Translating comics or GIFs requires permission; we have to ensure that the translated comics and GIFs will not be used for financial purposes or placed in items that are sold. You can contact us here.

Thank you so much for your help, community! Looking for other ways to support us? Visit our support page.

As lifelong learning amoebas, we find a lot of value from feedback. Feedback helps us grow and improve. Sometimes, it's brought to our attention that we need a clarification note. Sometimes, it is brought to our attention that there is a mispronunciation or mistaken sentence that needs to be corrected. Sometimes, there is updated information. Sometimes, we learn something new and really think it's important to add that detail or exception.

For this reason, we utilize pinned comments. Pinned comments allow us to put important notes about our videos!

To learn more about how we try to make edits on or videos, please check out this post here!

Our most frequent need for a pinned comment though tends to be due to the many AMAZING exceptions and details that we find are difficult to address in such short videos of under 10 minutes. We do like to pin comments about those amazing details and exceptions, and sometimes our description additionally has further reading suggestions where you can learn more about them too!

LAST UPDATED: December 21, 2020

Fellow educators, we hope you are safe and healthy during this time of the COVID-19 pandemic. We know that schools worldwide will be making difficult decisions on whether they open face to face, virtually, or both. We want to be able to support you in this challenging time! We continue to receive a larger volume of emails than typical regarding terms of use and suggested use, so we wanted to try to keep this page as updated as possible. As we start to look at the majority of question types, we thought we could proactively put some of the question types we have been receiving with some helpful suggestions. 

News for Spring Semester 2021:

• We continue to update a dropbox folder you can access at the top of our handout page that has all of our free video recap handouts in one place as we know that offers more convenience. 
• We will be making some update videos this spring including a new updated video on cellular respiration and a new updated video on photosynthesis. It will include improved audio and illustrations! However, we do NOT delete old videos so links and YouTube embeds will still function. We'll only move them out of our playlist and replace them with the updated version.
• Due to popular demand, we are going to be making some more Unlectured topics to create a second series! We'll continue to make sure they use flattened images that will work in a variety of edtech tools that accept .ppt tools. We had previously looked into making Nearpods, but unfortunately the space limit on the free version isn't large enough for our illustrations.
• Please take a look at our frequent questions below during this time! 

Last Updated: October 15, 2020

YouTube. We're so grateful to have a platform where we can share our work, and the platform also helps (partially) with supporting our work so we can continue to create. A while back, we wrote a post about tips for viewers using YouTube to watch edu videos. We wanted to update and expand on that based on what we've learned over the years.

Click that "CC" button at the bottom right to turn them on. Captions not only increase accessibility, but they can also be useful if you are in an area where you can not play the sound. They can also be a nice tool to see science words spelled out. Find a typo in our captions? We have a form on our contact page so we can get that fixed.

Sometimes those edu videos may go a little too fast! Did you know you can slow it down? (Or speed it up?) The video speed is an option when you click the gear at the bottom right of a video.

As an educator, Pinky found those keyboard shortcuts so helpful when needing to pause the video to ask questions or skip back or forward. If you're a teacher, you can even consider having a wireless keyboard so that you can control the video in the back of the room and start discussions from anywhere. Edu videos with engaging graphics (in our case, cartoons!) can make great discussion starters.

It's important to know how to share YouTube videos by using the YouTube link (or using the YouTube embed code, which is enabled on many edu channels)!  Most are familiar with YouTube links, but if you want a nice, streamlined look with a YouTube video on your class website or LMS, you may want to look at the YouTube embed feature, which will be available on videos if the channel enabled it. Just click "share" underneath the video, and click on "embed." You can also embed entire playlists so you could embed our entire learning playlist! YouTube embeds still feed from the YouTube channel itself. Need more detailed instructions on how to embed? Check this out from YouTube.

[NOTE: Embedding from YouTube using the YouTube embed code is very different from "ripping" and uploading a YouTube video, which is generally a terms of use violation. This means using software or a website to download a YouTube video and then posting it somewhere like on a school website, on social media, or on another YouTube channel typically violates the creators' rights as well as YouTube's terms of service. To avoid this, please make sure you are using either the YouTube link or the YouTube embed code, as those actually feed through the creator's channel.]

Many viewers may not realize the huge amount of information in a lot of edu video details (video descriptions). By clicking that "show more" underneath the video description, you can expand to see everything the edu creator has placed there. In our videos, we include references, further reading suggestions, our music credit, and additional links about our content.

A pinned comment is a comment that the edu creator has placed at the top of their comments. In many cases, it may be a comment from the edu creator themselves. The comment may have a clarification or important video note.

We're so excited to be a part of the beta launch of YouTube Learning Playlists that started in the summer of 2019! There are a lot of YouTube learning playlists that you can explore here, and this is our biology learning playlist. Learning playlists include objectives, chapters, and a dedicated space without suggested videos. We're excited to see how it evolves.

Thanks for reading our tips! For more info about our videos specifically, check out our videos page.

Also, if you're an educator, we made a video specifically on suggestions for using our videos in biology.

High school or college student? We made a video with study tips when using our videos.

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!