The Chicago Tribune recently reported that the Chicago Public Schools system has changed its position on the website YouTube, write Brad Boeker for Yahoo! News. Teachers, previously blocked from using YouTube, now have access to the ubiquitous video site. This is the right move for the district. Technology offers unlimited ways to engage and challenge students, and districts would be foolish to take away such valuable tools for its teaching staffs. There are valid concerns about using YouTube in schools. The district where I teach briefly shut down student access to the site last year when our technology director did a study and discovered that student use of YouTube was hogging an inordinate amount of the school’s available bandwidth, causing other online applications to bog down. Similarly, many videos (or more specially the ads accompanying those videos) aren’t appropriate for use in schools…
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