This picture is real! I am not going to say where I got it, or when it was taken, but I can assure you that this was posted everywhere in a middle school. The sign is about a lottery that took place, for an event. This post isn’t about the sign, which is hilarious by the way, but more about YouTube and how many schools block it. Whether you are for blocking or unblocking read on and leave a comment. Inquiring minds want to know.
FYI: I picked the picture above because I thought it would be far more eye catching than a YouTube logo. Was I right?
Whenever I enter this conversation with my friends and colleagues Someone inevitably opens up YouTube and type something in the search like “kids who hate teachers.” A ton of stuff will pop up that is totally not suitable for work (NSFW). It is hard to argue about the loads of inappropriate material that is floating around the YouTube servers, but before you say “case closed!” and move on-think about this.
The amount of content on YouTube is staggering-literally mind blowing! In a FAQ provided by the company, it boasts that every minute twenty four hours of video is uploaded. Let’s think about this for a few minutes and crunch some numbers. That means every hour, 60 days of video content has beeb upload, and every day (wait for it) there is a staggering 1,400 plus more days of video content. In a thirty day month more than 43,000 days (or 118 years) of video has been uploaded. I could go on, but I think you are grasping the enormity of this site. Holy crap that is a lot! This easily makes YouTube the largest video collection ever!
Can we really deny our students access to the largest library of video media ever because of a number of off colored and inappropriate videos? I mean if we lived near to the greatest library in the world would we keep them out because it contained a number of adult or inappropriate works of prose, poetry, or literature? I know I use YouTube all the time for Photoshop, Excel, basically anything I need a little help and while I don’t always find what I’m looking for, more times than naught I do find what I’m looking for.
My school currently blocks YouTube and I can respect it. I see where they are coming from, and I am a patient man. I know sooner or later that we will open it up. It may be a change in YouTube with some search settings, or maybe a special YouTube site that only searches through educationally tagged items. Either way, it is inevitable. In the meantime, I will promote it and say yes to YouTube!
Technology in the Classroom 
There are tons of videos put on YouTube by universities, schools, and regular people who want to share their knowledge/lectures with everyone. Unfortunately, this is hardly compelling next to a video of some random guy in a funny accident, which means that schools do block sites like YouTube. If students could be counted on to use these things responsibly, then rules would probably change. But keep in mind that we have grown men and women abusing the same privelages at work, so it’s understanable that children do the same thing.
You make a great point, and I doubt that the entertainment draw of YouTube will ever change. Perhaps if they offered an educational or child friendly site, maybe schools would be less fearful of the content that their students would peruse. I am hopeful, especially since Google has been making a big push with their Google docs. Maybe a school friendly YouTube is on the way in a few years. In the meantime I will save the videos I want and bring them to school.
Thanks for the comment!