1. copyright infringement: it’s so easy to get videos that were posted to YouTube illegally. You can’t expect students to do their own work when you showed them a pirated video yesterday. However, I am afraid that the temptation will be too great for many teachers.
2. students waste time: YouTube is the ultimate playground for procrastinators. Students can waste class period after class period wandering through videos.
3. teachers waste time: like we’re any better- have you even been emailed that “must-see” video? Now imagine this stuff streaming into you classroom.
4. sucks up bandwidth: with everyone in the school browsing through video after video, network speeds at you school will come to a crawl.
5. inappropriate material: everything from pointless to tasteless- much of YouTube is not appropriate for school
6. here today, gone tomorrow: not all the videos on YouTube stick around forever- you might send students off on a wild goose chase that leads them to videos that you weren’t expecting
7. spam and scam: spammers and scammers are posting video all over YouTube to entice people to click over to a website that may contain viruses, malware or worse
8. lies, lies and more lies: 9/11 conspiracies, miracle water, the real truth about the Holocaust- anyone can make a high quality and convincing video for YouTube that can fill your students’ heads with lies

So given all the good that YouTube can offer, how do we deal with the obstacles listed above?

It brings up several great points about plagiarism in the blogosphere. I’d share some quotes but the article suggests that I shouldn’t. You’ll just need to check it out for yourself.

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Since Image servers collect images from everywhere, and many of the images are pornographic, we will have to block sites that do not properly filter these images according to the Child Information Protection Act (CIPA), as required by Federal Law.

It is unfortunate that a few students (as always) ruin a good thing for everyone else. However, according to CIPA, a school’s funding can be cut if it doesn’t show “. . .that they have an Internet safety policy and technology protection measures in place.”

Copyright is another thing to consider if you use Google Images. Remember that most of the images online are copyright protected. Make sure that you are complying with fair use policies when using any image from the web.

Don’t believe that it matters? Here is a true story. My brother worked for a company that posted a picture of Milwaukee on their website. The problem was that the picture wasn’t taken by anyone in his company. The artist contacted his company—long story made short— the company had to pay the artist $900. The artist said that they simply use Google Images to see if people are using their work without permission.

But there is more to this story than just the legal side. It is wrong to take things (even digital things) without permission. As teachers, we need to make sure that we are modeling ethical behavior that respects that work of others.