Sending Students to YouTube without All the Clutter

[Caution: Please use YouTube judiciously.]

Instructional Purpose: YouTube videos can contain valuable instruction, but if you send students directly to YouTube to watch a video, they will be exposed to additional clutter beyond your intended video. Distracting advertisements, user comments, and other related videos, all outside your direct control, fill their viewing window. An alternative is to provide them a URL that displays the YouTube video in a relatively clean environment. Here’s how:

Step One: Install in your browser toolbar quietube.com–it’s a bookmarklet and can be used for most of the main video sites, not just YouTube.
A. Go to http://quietube.com/

B. Drag the little “quietube” button in the middle of the screen to your toolbar. This installs the quietube bookmarklet in your browser to you can activate it from YouTube. Unfortunately, quietube does not install in Internet Explorer, so you will have to use another browser (e.g., Firefox, Safari).

Step Two: Obtain the quietube URL from the YouTube video.
A. Browse to the YouTube video you would like to share with your students.

B. Click on the quietube bookmarklet in your browser toolbar. You will be taken to a new URL, which displays the YouTube video without the YouTube clutter.

C. Copy the quietube-provided URL.
Step Three: Share the quietube URL with your students. Paste the quietube URL to share with your students (e.g., email, Blackboard, MSWord document, Adobe .pdf, PowerPoint slide, etc.)

Watch for our final YouTube Tech Tip:
“Showing a YouTube Video in a PowerPoint Presentation”