Here are a few suggestions on how to best search for educational videos in the classroom:

1. Set up your own channel. This approach requires a bit of work up front, but it provides a resource that can be used repeatedly. And once searching for history videos becomes second nature, it becomes easier to teach students how to search for quality content on YouTube. As you find course-appropriate videos, click on the down arrow button next to "Add." Here, you have two choices: either add the video to "favorites" or create your own playlist. "Favorites" automatically displays in your course YouTube channel. In order to display a personalized playlist, however, you must be logged onto your YouTube account and in your specific channel. There, you will find a user menu at the top and be able to select "Videos and Playlists." Check the playlist box, and then check the specific title of your desired playlist. Your channel will refresh and display the specific playlist underneath "favorites." Once you collect a number of videos in the course channel's "Favorites" category, or add them to a specific playlist, students can select from videos approved for the course.
2. Teach students how to set up their own "History" channels. After setting up a course-specific channel with favorite videos and user-generated playlists teach students how to create their own channels and playlists. This is ideal for long-term projects. Students can also add videos to the course YouTube channel by emailing you the link to a particular video, or if you have created a student-accessible account, students can add videos directly. Specific guidelines and monitoring, though, are highly recommend to avoid unwanted videos on a course channel.
3. Search for reputable organizations on YouTube. Find channels created by educational organizations such as the Library of Congress, National Archives, TimeLife, or the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.
4. Use existing channels as a gateway to other sites. For example, TED.com offers videos from TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) talks around the world. It hosts videos both on its own site and on YouTube. Arrangements like this provide educators some flexibility by using YouTube as a "gateway" to other video sites. For example, a quick exploration of TED videos via the tags page leads users to talks on history that can be used to generate discussion in class.
5. Teach students how to search online wisely. Teaching students how to become digitally-literate is now part of many social studies teachers' job descriptions. Too often, we expect students to be more savvy than their elders in using new-media technologies . . . and sometimes they are. Social studies teachers, however, can teach students how to maximize the use of online tools for the research, writing, and production of history. Searching for "Civil War" or "Jefferson" is unlikely to yield desired results (unless students want to watch Jefferson Airplane and Guns N' Roses music videos). Encourage students to use specific search terms and broaden from there if necessary. For example, specifying the "American Civil War" will provide better search results than simply searching for "Civil War." "U.S. Civil War battles in western North Carolina," however, may be too specific to generate good results. Search for a particular event ("Battle of Bull Run") will help, as will using first and last names when searching for YouTube videos on famous personalities in history—such as "Thomas Jefferson."

"Wait! YouTube is blocked at my school!"

Here are a few options that might work:

• If YouTube is blocked at your school, use write-ups like this Tech for Teachers entry (as well as other education articles) to see if school system IT personnel can allow password-protected access to YouTube.
• Ask the school system's IT personnel to unblock your teacher-generated course (or teacher) channel on YouTube. You may want to add to this list any organizational YouTube channels of importance to your teaching, such as the Library of Congress or the JFK Library. Providing a particular list of URLs for content-specific YouTube channels will increase your chances of accessing valuable videos. This is a much easier request than providing hundreds of URLs for individual video clips.
• If all else fails, you may be able to download YouTube videos at home for use in the classroom. Many free sites can convert YouTube videos into files that can be played on QuickTime, Real Media Player, or Windows Media Player. Sites like Convert Direct or Media Converter will convert YouTube videos into an .mp3, .wmv, .avi, or .mov file. Pay close attention to copyright restrictions before copying online content.
• TubeChop is an online tool to cut, or chop, a particular portion of a YouTube video—perfect for showing a specific clip for classroom instruction. Users drag the beginning and end cursors to desired location, chop, and TubeChop provides a URL address via their site and an embed code.

In short, YouTube offers teachers a wide variety of materials to use in the classroom. As with any online tool, careful consideration is necessary before students begin using YouTube for historical research and projects. Videos are not a solution to ineffective lessons, but when used in a specific—and targeted way—they can enhance well-designed lesson plans, engage visual learners, and help make history come alive for students.

One good site to examine the potential of map overlays is Dave Rumsey's site. In an 1861 historical overlay, we see an old map of Washington, DC over a Google Map in Satellite View. By clicking on "Washington DC 1861" on the right, users can make the map come and go as they please. Likewise, by clicking on "transparent map", users can add and remove modern street names and locales.

Historypin is another good site to see what users can do with pin markers, photographs, and other information that can make history come alive.

Another good site to examine student-produced Google Maps projects is Google Historical Voyages and Events. By clicking on "historical events" on the left sidebar menu, several student-created projects are available for browsing. One useful starting point is to select "Major Events of the Civil War" and browse various class projects in Google Maps. "Major Events of the Civil War," a 5th-grade class project, also includes detailed for educators to gain ideas of how to use Google Maps in the classroom across grades 5-12.

In a simple avatar that imagines a modern-day George Washington, students could apply Washington's guiding philosophies to modern issues such as health care, immigration, or foreign interventions. By speaking through an avatar, students will not only retain online privacy (great for teachers and parents!) but will appreciate an innovative and safe platform for classroom presentations.

Students can use their avatars to engage in debates and topic discussions—such as Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan engaging in issues of states rights and federalism. Likewise, students could use their avatar creations to address a homework question on a course blog or wiki page. Another good use of Voki avatars is to re-enact famous speeches such as the Gettysburg Address, or to summarize the President's State of the Union Speech in under two minutes by examining word clouds released after the speech.

Finally, a wonderful use for these avatars is to apply gained knowledge of philosophical views of historical figures into fictional scenarios. For example, students can create a fictional character that meets a certain demographic (i.e. middle-aged Hispanic female nurse). Then the entire class, made up of various American citizens, can conduct a town hall debate on the key issues of the past and present. A variation of this format is to conduct a town hall of famous American politicians and personalities—such as Barack Obama, Reagan, Washington, Lincoln, John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, Sarah Palin, and John Stewart.

An easy way to experiment with Padlet is to give it a try with a simple question. Once users become more accustomed to how Padlet functions, they can construct walls that employ more Web tools. We posted a sample question on a 1960s U.S. advertisement for a non-coffee product so that readers of this Tech for Teachers entry can add their own thoughts. Try it out! Leave a "sticky" note and tell us how you would respond to the coffee question, ad, and TV commercials.

Embedding an image for viewing and providing a directed question allow the coffee example to work like a document-based question (DBQ). Additionally, the coffee question can be expanded into other discussions. In this case, a YouTube clip on coffee advertisements opens up questions about gender relationships in 1950s-1960s America. The use of various multimedia sources makes historical questions more complex, engages students, and goes beyond what is possible in a traditional worksheet/whiteboard approach. By modeling specific uses for Padlet, teachers can also empower students to create their own effective walls for classroom use and history-based discussions.

A few technical issues are worth considering. Each sticky note is limited to 150 characters. Also, images heavy on text might not be legible, even in their zoom pop-windows. If this is the case, viewers can find larger images by either right-clicking the image and saving it to their desktop, or enlarging the zoom view on the computer screen. Lastly, and most problematically, the site tends to become tied up and non-responsive. We have encountered many instances when Padlet fails to load properly. However, the value of the tool should encourage users to be patient and hope for a more consistent service in the future. Padlet is a simple tool, but one that can accentuate the best teaching practices teachers employ on a day-to-day basis. For students, carefully posed questions will allow them to respond in many ways—which only helps classroom discussion.

It is highly recommended that teachers create a "test-run" project ahead of time before working with students. In addition, it might serve well to have students prepare all images and script beforehand. Users can create their own artwork using the built-in drawing pad, but teachers may need access to a scanner to create image files of original student artwork on paper (note: images and scans should be saved in .jpg, .png or .gif).

The strength of Little Bird Tales is the ability for children to tell stories that can be autobiographical (my life, my community, my school, my family), biographical (U.S. presidents, world history figures), or related to other aspects of the early grades social studies curriculum such as the environment, economics, civic ideals, or global communities. Little Bird Tales works well because it captures the imagination, creativity, and voice of the child in a free and easy to use platform. Public Tales on the LBT site include a civics project on American symbols, a story on "daddies", a tale on regional history, a silent tale on global cultures and clothing using beautiful imagery, and an inspirational video by a young runner. Middle school and high school students can also benefit from LBT, as evidenced on a video dealing with homelessness in America. In our experience in working with a 1st-grader, the initial day of trying out LBT was a learning curve for her but she caught on quickly. With simple guidance, she was able to do all the work (although uploading images needed more hands-on assistance.) By the half-way point, she was typing, recording her voice, saving her work, and moving on to the next slide. Fatigue did settle in after a while, so preparing all materials and images beforehand helped her. She also discovered LBT's ability to rearrange pictures in any order—a useful benefit whenever she changed her mind after previewing the video. The student found the playback of the recording useful and empowering; immediately recording a passage again helped her get the video "just right." It took her about 2-3 hours in total to finish the project. Keeping this one experience in mind, it might be best for teachers to first try LBT by having each student create one or two slides for a class video. For example, in a 50-states project, each student could easily adopt one or two states and create a few slides which would allow the entire U.S. to be included in a video project. This model could likewise work for U.S. presidents, famous American citizens, local communities, or other topics with a large number of elements. Such an introductory approach serves teachers and students alike. Children can become familiar with technology in a limited way by creating only a few slides. For their part, educators can invest limited curriculum time for a collective project, before expanding a video project to a more extensive one for individual students.