Google announced this new initiative in mid-December.
The YouTube for Schools channel allows schools, particularly primary and secondary schools, to provide access to the vast amount of educational content on YouTube. The benefit is that all the distractions and disruptions that exist on the ‘full’ YouTube site are filtered out and only content from approved providers is available. While this approach might be limiting at the tertiary/university level, it does mean that those primary and secondary schools that previously struggled with the wholesale blocking of YouTube can easily provide access to all the good stuff.
More information is available from Google’s Blog on their initiative and at the YouTube for Schools webpage.
