Wednesday, October 21, 2015

Why you should subscribe to YouTube channels

image courtesy Hypebot
YouTube lets you watch a variety of videos on practically any topic imaginable. Many users produce a whole series of videos on a particular topic. This series of of videos is called a channel. A channel on YouTube is the home page for an account. It shows the public videos that person has uploaded.

Personally I have become interested in woodworking and successfully taught myself how to build a dresser for my daughter. Every time I had a problem I turned to YouTube to see possible solutions and work arounds. In those searches I came across a YouTube channel called The Wood Whisperer that had a lot of great tips. I quickly subscribed to his channel so I could see when he created new videos and catch up on older videos.

As a teacher you might discover channels that interest you and your subject area. Maybe you find someone who produces awesome math videos that are entertaining and explain math concepts in an easy to understand way. Or you teach a foreign language and find a channel that helps students understand basic vocabulary. Subscribing is a great way to save those channels in one place and never miss an new video.

Subscribing to a channel is easy. In order to subscribe, you have to first be logged in to your YouTube account. Then simply click the button anywhere you see it. It's generally found under the video and to the left, near the video's author. The subscribe button also shows you how many people have also subscribed to that channel. The higher the number, the more popular that channel is. When you subscribe to a channel, it's added to your subscriptions list in your guide on the left hand side of your YouTube page.

 

Finding channels to subscribe to

 On your home page you'll find channels recommended to you based on your YouTube browsing history. Since I was looking up woodworking videos, I was recommended a few channels that might interest me. If I like the channel, I can click the button  right there or check out a video first.

Another way to find channels is to search for them. In the YouTube search bar enter in any topic you are looking for. In the search results click the Filter drop down menu and select Channels. This will show you only channels with that search term in the name.


Instead of clicking the drop down and selecting a filter, you can include that filter right in your search by typing a comma and the filter, as shown here.


Keep in mind that these filters only include channels with that search term in their title - not individual videos with that word in the title.

After searching for a channel you can click the  button to subscribe right from the search results.

Subscribing to channels is a great way to follow YouTube authors that you really like. What are some of your favorite channels?

2 comments:

  1. Mark , I agree with your post about subscribing to YouTube channels. I subscribed to a channel called The Virtual Instructor. I use their videos to enhance certain lessons. I show the videos and let the students follow along to the tutorials. I have shown videos dealing with drawing, watercolor pencils, watercolor, and painting. The students are always engaged and it really helps them achieve better results in their final studio project.

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    1. Thank you for your comment! I'm a huge advocate of video. I think it's a great tool to show students how something is done, just as you've described using it in your class.

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