Add a Video to a YouTube Playlist
It would be hard to deny the impact that YouTube has had on our culture. I don’t know about your kids but my 5 kids are constantly learning things from watching YouTube. A video can be an excellent hook for learning. Create curiosity. As you troll YouTube and find those awesome videos, add them to a Playlist to make it easier to find later. Create different playlists to share with your students as a resource of curated videos.
Add To
I saw that Jennie Magiera tweeted out the link to her ISTE keynote and I wanted to save the video. The interface has changed so it took me a second to locate the “Add to” icon. Notice the thumbs up and thumbs down icons. To the right of that is a “Share” option. To the right of that is an icon with 3 lines and a plus sign. This is the “Add to playlist” icon.
Checkbox to Add
Clicking on the icon expands a list of your current Playlists. Click the checkbox of the Playlist you wish to add the video to. I have a playlist called “watch later” and another one “cool hook videos.” I also have ones that are topic specific to math such as “Probability dependent events.” As I find good math videos for my students, I can add them to the Playlist. The Playlist links do not need to be updated when I add a video to the Playlist. You can also create a new Playlist if the video does not fit into any of the current Playlists that you have. Notice the plus “Create new playlist” at the bottom of the pop up.
Find Your Playlists
Always be on the look out for the 3 lines menu! I notice the new Google Calendar also has the menu collapsed until you click on the 3 lines in the upper left hand corner. Google Classroom also. Click on the 3 lines to expand out a sidebar with options.
Library
Under the “Library” section of the menu it will show an icon of 3 lines with the play symbol on it. This is one of your Playlists. Click on “Show more” to show your entire list of Playlists. Mine is literally hundreds of Playlists so it’s a good thing they are collapsed initially.
Clicking on the playlist in the menu opens it up to the right.
Copy the URL
Copy the link to the Playlist! The URL at the top of the screen will link others to this playlist. I use Control L to highlight the URL and Control C to copy it. (Command L and Command C on a Mac.) Click here to link to the exponents Playlist.
When opening someone else’s Playlist you can add all of those videos to your own Playlist. Look for the 3 dots above the list of videos.
Notice the “Play all” button for the Playlist. Students can watch them as consecutive videos or choose which video they would benefit from watching.
Edit Your Playlist
You can reorder the videos in your list. By default when using “Add to” to create your Playlist the videos will be in the order that you added them.
Reorder Videos
You can drag videos in the Playlist into the order you desire. Hover over the left side of the listed video to reveal the grippy dots indicating that the video can be dragged in the Playlist. The cursor will change to the “Move” cursor icon of 4 arrows.
Make a Note
To the right side of the listed video, hover to reveal a “More” button. Clicking on the tiny arrow on the More button gives the options to “Move to top,” “Move to bottom,” “Add/ edit notes,” or “Set as playlist thumbnail.” Choose “Add/ edit notes.”
This offers a pop up box that allows you to type a note to the students. This is an excellent opportunity to give your own commentary on the video and what the students should do with the information. Note that your note has to be about 1-2 sentences. Can’t get wordy.
Playlist Settings
Check out the “Playlist settings.”
You can choose to have new videos default to the top instead of the bottom. An excellent choice to keep your list current for students if the order is not super important.
Collaborate
Why am I a fan of Google tools? One word: Collaborate. I am super excited about this feature to collaborate on a YouTube playlist. When I worked on the YouTube for teachers team this feature would have been transformational, so excited to see this is now an option. Your grade level team can now work together to find those awesome YouTube videos for students around different topics.