Technology Review: Best of YouTube

BEST OF YOUTUBE is a YouTube page that connects with YouTube’s automatically generated channels containing the latest news, information, and entertainment videos.

It’s easy to get overwhelmed when visiting the YouTube website. However, YouTube has created a series of auto-generated pages to help users locate its most popular content. Across the top of the Best of YouTube page are links to these pages.

The Popular on YouTube page contains dozens of playlists to help users locate videos by category such as animals, politics, sports, games, hobbies, and movie trailers. Playlists are often added for special events such as national elections, Olympic sports, and disasters.

In addition to the Popular channel, YouTube has other automated channels such as News, Music, Gaming, Sports, and TV Shows. The Spotlight channel is of particular note because it focuses on new and trending topics from around the world. The Live channel is useful on days when you want to keep up on a constantly changing news story. Finally, the Education channel keeps users up-to-date on popular videos across the curriculum.

Librarians will find that many of the playlists aren’t related directed to the curriculum. However, these auto-generated pages are a quick way to locate current information on topics such as politics, technology, science, social issues, and news events.

A Popular on YouTube page is available for many countries around the world. Do a Google search and you can find the links to the United Kingdom, India, Canada, Australia, and others. It’s interesting for students to compare what’s popular in each country.

To visit the Best of YouTube, go to https://www.youtube.com/channels.

Website Review: NBC Learn

NBC LEARN is a website focusing on news and information of interest to K-12 students.

Thousands of standards aligned stories have been digitized from the NBC News archives dating back to the 1920s. Both subscription-based and free resources are available.

The subscription-based option is connected with the Pearson Online Learning Exchange (OLE).

The free resources include over a dozen video projects. While some collections focus on event-specific topics such as Pi Day, the Summer Olympics, and the Winter Olympics, others are connected to sports topics of interest such as the Science of Golf, Hockey, and Football. Topics specific to science include water, innovation, chemistry, and climate change.

History topics include a video series on the Civil Rights Era and one on the Titanic.

The Writers Speak to Kids is a video series containing over a dozen interviews with award-winning authors talking about the craft of creative writing. Librarians will be specifically interested in these short, quality videos.

To learn more, go to http://www.nbclearn.com/portal/site/learn.

Website & App Review: News-O-Matic

NEWS-O-MATIC is a subscription-based app that provides engaging nonfiction reading experiences for elementary students. Each weekday, readers are provided with standards-aligned, grade-appropriate news stories to read. The high-interest resources are a wonderful way to promote life-long reading habits. From covering science discoveries to sporting events, NEWS-O-MATIC provides exciting informational reading experiences across the curriculum.

Although the articles are brief, they’re a great starting point for class discussions and may stimulate interest in a more in-depth investigation. In addition to reading experiences, the features often include slideshows, puzzles, games, timelines, maps, or video clips. A read-aloud options is useful for students with special needs. In addition, a Spanish translation is also available.

Student accounts allow youth to take quizzes, write, draw, and record their results.

Available as both an iPad App from iTunes and an Android App from Google, go to http://press4kids.com/ for more information.