Minimizing YouTube Distractions

Unfortunately, as great as YouTube is, it does have its downsides. Ads play before videos and not only are you unable to skip some, but you have no control over the type of ad you will see. Sometimes, suggested videos that appear alongside or after a video are really not appropriate for the students you are working with, and if you ever scroll down to read some of the comments underneath a video, you may be a little surprised at the vitriolic musing of YouTube's users. However, help is at hand, and on this page I wanted to share with you a few tools you can use to help minimize these distractions!

Ad Blockers

There are numerous ad blocker extensions that you can add to a browser to help block unwanted ads from appearing before, during or after a video. Once installed, you can wave goodbye to ads on YouTube, and everywhere else on the internet. Here are a couple you can try:

 

Content Blockers

If you are looking for a quick way to banish comments, sidebars, and ads, then you should take a look at a website like viewpure.com Links to an external site. or safeshare.tv Links to an external site.. All you need to do is copy and paste the URL of a YouTube video into their search bar, and you will instantly get a cleaner and safer view that you can share with kids. Here is a before and after shot to show you a comparison.

screenshot of a video on YouTube called Where is Scandanavia?

screenshot of a YouTube video on view pure dot com showing no sidebars, comments or other distracting elements

When you add your video to SafeShare or ViewPure, it will remove ads and give you a link that you can share with your students to the new version of the video that it generates. When students click on the link, they won't go to YouTube. Instead, they will go to SafeShare or ViewPure's website.

There are also other fun features on these sites. For instance, the ability to set  the start and end time on a video. This means you can give students 5 minutes of a 30 minute video to watch and they won't have to scan around for the start of the section you want them to watch. The video will automatically start and finish at the times you set.