Webfusion

YouTube has a new version of its video-streaming service aimed at pleasing pernickity teachers. YouTube For Schools blocks the vast majority of YouTube videos, showing instead only educational clips so no sneezing kittens or extreme stunts.

YouTube claim that students can learn from more than 400,000 educational videos that fall within the educational remit and include those  from well-known organizations including Stanford, PBS and TED. There are several YouTube specialists also operating in the field like Steve Spangler Science and numberphile and with this latest initiative you can be sure there will soon be many more. Schools are also given the opportunity to customize their YouTube for Schools experience by selecting what videos are viewable within their school network

In a blog post, product manager Brian Truong said, “We’ve been hearing from teachers that they want to use the vast array of educational videos on YouTube in their classrooms, but are concerned that students will be distracted by the latest music video or video of a cute cat.”

With many schools already blocking YouTube access from within their networks, the video giant will be hoping this move will tempt some institutions to re-enable the site for students.

Here’s YouTube’s own promo video

Can YouTube operate on a dual-content level?