The days of heated arguments about whether or not YouTube should be accessible in school seem to be behind us. That doesn’t mean that YouTube is always the best option for hosting and sharing videos in your school. In fact, just yesterday someone emailed me to ask for suggestions on how her students can share their book trailer videos without having to upload them to YouTube.
There are three options that I generally recommend whenever I’m asked for alternatives to using YouTube to host and share students’ video projects.
- Google Drive: this is probably the best option for teachers and students who have Google Workspace accounts.
- OneDrive: If you and your students have Microsoft accounts, OneDrive offers a convenient way to share video files. I particularly like that you can set an expiration date for access and a password for access.
- Flipgrid: An often overlooked feature of Flipgrid is to use it as a place for students to share videos that they have made outside of the Flipgrid app. You and your students can upload videos to share with each other.
In this short video I demonstrate all of the above methods for sharing videos without using YouTube.