Teaching Tools- YouTube

What is YouTube?

Founded in 2005, YouTube is one of the most popular video sites on the Web today. Millions of videos have been uploaded and shared here, ranging from movie trailers to amateur videos of cats - and everything in between.


Anyone with an Internet connection can share content on YouTube, whether they are organizations with large budgets or an individual with a video camera. YouTube is owned by Google, and is one of their most popular peripheral properties. YouTube was the first large-scale video sharing site on the Web, and  it is available in nearly every country and over fifty different languages. Anyone can upload content here, which makes for an utterly astonishing array of watchable content.

How To Watch Videos On YouTube?

In order to get personalized results, create playlists, or comment on other videos, users must create a YouTube account or associate an existing global Google account with the new YouTube account.


This is so YouTube can "learn" your preferences; for example, say you look for videos that help you learn how to play the guitar. The next time you visit YouTube, if you're signed into your Google account, YouTube will automatically serve up more videos that teach you how to play the guitar.

This feature helps YouTube personalize what they show to users so they offer a more relevant user experience. However, if you would rather that YouTube did not save your preferences, simply do not sign in to your Google account when using YouTube (learn more about what signing in to Google services means at How Much Information Does Google Have About Me?).

There are multiple ways you can find what you want to watch on YouTube, including:

• Browse via keyword or keyword phrase.
• Find videos in topics and categories.
• Filter results by date and popularity.
• View the charts ranking the Most Popular videos in any given category.
• Read the trending topics word cloud found at the bottom of most category pages.

If you find a video that you like, you'll notice that there is also a comments section right below the video. Most videos have a comments section where users can leave their thoughts, as well as a thumbs up or thumbs down icon to record their support (or lack of). Some video owners choose to disable this section; this is up to the individual YouTube user to do so.