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Sharing YouTube videos inside the Virtual Classroom
Sharing YouTube videos inside the Virtual Classroom

How to add YouTube videos to your classroom, so you and your students can easily watch together.

Alexander Asher avatar
Written by Alexander Asher
Updated over a week ago

YouTube is a fantastic resource for educational videos. There are literally millions of hours of demonstrations, explanations, and examples which you can use in class.

When you open a YouTube video in LearnCube's Virtual Classroom, the teacher controls the playback, so you can play, pause, and navigate to different points in the video, and your student will be kept in sync with you.

Unlike a screen share, you and your students will be streaming the video directly from YouTube. This means there is no need to open multiple tabs or windows, and the video quality will be much better.

To add a YouTube video, you have two options:

1. Adding a YouTube video directly to the whiteboard

If you want to open a video in the classroom quickly, you can just copy and paste it.

Note: using this method doesn't save the video to your library.

To do so:

  1. Simply copy the video URL. You can use the keyboard shortcut cmd+C or ctrl+C (on mac and windows respectively).

  2. Then go back to the classroom, click on the whiteboard and paste the link, using the shortcut cmd+V or ctrl+V.

    The video will now open in a new whiteboard tab.

    Add a YouTube video to LearnCube's Virtual Classroom

2. Adding a YouTube video to your Content Library

If the video is something you'll often use in classes, it's best to add it to your Content Library. This means you'll be able to quickly and easily open it again in future.

To do so:

  1. Open the file upload menu.

  2. Click on the YouTube logo.
    If you have the video URL, you can paste it here directly, or you can search for a video using keywords, just like on YouTube itself.

    you will see the option to preview the video, so you can check that it's the right one.

    Upload a YouTube video to LearnCube's Virtual Classroom

  3. Click Save to Lesson Materials. Then click on Upload File
    It's also a good idea to give the video a title so that you can easily search for it.

    Upload a YouTube video to LearnCube's Virtual Classroom

YouTube Controls - subtitles, mute, video quality

The YouTube video player has some controls which are set locally. This means that the teacher and student will need to set these separately. For the most part, they won't affect your classes, but three controls are important to know about. Youtube doesn't allow Learncube to control both sides of these features at the moment, fully.

  • Mute

    You can mute your video and adjust the volume by clicking on the volume icon on the video, but this won't be reflected on the student's side. Your students can control the volume of their device if they'd wish to.

  • Subtitles

    Subtitles can be enabled/disabled by clicking the CC button, but they won't appear on the student side.

  • Playback Speed:

    The teacher can adjust the playback speed on their end, but it won't be reflected on the student's side. If the teacher stops the video on their end, it will then catch up on the student side, to where the teacher is in the video.

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