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" Apple has long touted its device's assistive technology as a powerful tool for the educational development of physically and mentally disabled children. The iPad's touch screen makes it easier to manipulate than more traditional educational tools. For children with autism, "the iPad is not a toy, but a tool that works best when there is a 'team effort' between parents and therapists encouraging its proper use," said Marc Reisner, co-founder of Reach for the APPs. "Our goal is to provide schools with iPads so they can reach every child on the autistic spectrum." Reach for the APPs built their site with an initial donation from Managed Digital. Now, they're seeking out donations of money and/or iPads from both individuals and corporations to propel the program forward. According to reports from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 1-in-88 children have some form of autism, up 78 percent from just a decade ago. The demand for augmentative communications devices is growing. But the schools can't meet the demand, so the children are losing valuable time during critical developmental years. Lois Brady, a speech language pathologist and assistive technology specialist, said apps can help develop fine-motor skills, which will in turn make functions like writing and manipulating small objects easier for the students. "I have spent years working with the most challenging students that are considered profoundly disabled," she said. "And I have seen some small miracles when I introduce the iPad into our therapy, as the children have made huge gains in attention, focus, communication, language and literacy skills." Some experts also say that the iPad can lessen symptoms of autistic disorders, helping children deal with life's sensory overload. Brady will be contributing content to the Reach for the APPs website to inform therapists about the latest-and-greatest apps for children all over the autistim spectrum. Apps must be tailor

"ViewPure is absolutely an excellent tool for teachers and students. It allows you to watch YouTube videos in a clean and distraction-free interface. All the distractive features such as ads, related videos, and comments are removed providing students with an ideal environment for watching educational videos. Inappropriate content accompanying YouTube videos lead many teachers to shun away from incorporating YouTube videos in their instruction but with ViewPure this is no longer a problem and teachers are able to provide students with an enhanced YouTube experience with the minimum distraction possible. We said minimum because some ads are integrated with YouTube videos and ViewPure can not remove them."

"YouTube is definitely one of the best platforms for searching and accessing  educational video resources. We have already covered several ways teachers can leverage the  power of this platform in instruction. In fact, the strength of YouTube is not only in it being a resource of educational videos but is also a powerful tool for creating and editing videos. Several teachers still overlook some excellent editing features and creative possibilities that YouTube provides. For instance, you can use YouTube editor to create beautiful slideshows and presentations to share in class, or create use it to create a Hangout  and invite students to take part. These and several other hacks are all available right in your YouTube account and if you need help discovering YouTube's hidden gems, this section is a good place to start with."

"Over the last few years I've seen more schools opening up access to YouTube, at least to teachers, than I had in the past. YouTube for Schools has partially contributed to that trend. Tools like ViewPure and Watchkin have made using YouTube videos in schools a little less scary too. All that said, there are still lots of schools that block access to YouTube. That's why a few years ago I started to maintain a list of alternatives to YouTube."

"For the last couple of years Vimeo has offered free music to download and re-use in your video projects. Now YouTube is offering the same thing through the YouTube Audio Library. This library is slightly different than the free music available when you use the YouTube slideshow creation tool. The music in the YouTube Audio Library is music that you can download to use in projects online and offline. You can search the library of music according to genre, mood, instrument, or duration. You can listen to the tracks before downloading them as MP3 files."

"YouTube is the premier destination for music videos today, which also makes it one of the most popular music streaming services. If you use YouTube to listen to music, the experience can be a whole lot better with the right extensions or web apps. We've previously talked about some of the best YouTube music players, but things have changed a bit since then. Browser extensions now give you lyrics with each video, while some apps and extensions will save bandwidth by playing only the audio without video. The bottom line is that anyone who uses YouTube for music needs to check out these cool tools."

"One of the questions that I'm frequently asked at the beginning of the school year goes something like this, "do you know how I can download videos from YouTube?" I do know how to do that, but I won't teach you how to do that because it is a violation of YouTube's terms of service. But I will show you how you can display YouTube videos in your classroom without showing the sidebar related video suggestions and comments. Here are five tools that you can use to display YouTube videos without showing the related video suggestions and comments."

"The folks at TED talks recently launched TED-Ed to serve the mission "of capturing and amplifying the voice of the world's greatest teachers." more In addition to developing a library of instructional videos, they've just added a free set of tools that allow teachers to create customized lessons from existing videos on TED, YouTube or YouTube for Schools. "

"Whiteboard animation videos are videos that draw themselves. They involve an animated use of images, shapes, characters, sounds and voice-overs to create a clip. This form of video production has been very popular recently and is widely used by some leading educational YouTube channels such as TED Ed and RSA Animate. Creating a whiteboard animation video is no longer a graphic designer's job. There are actually several web tools that allow you to easily put together an animated video with as simple tools as drag and drop. As a teacher, you can  use these animations to create and share tutorials,  presentations, step by tsp guides, and many more. Below are three  of my favourite tools I would recommend for you:"

Mixbook.com is web-based but sets itself apart from the previously mentioned tools. It allows us to use storytelling in a way that we all are already comfortable and familiar with. The process does not create a new media, such as a podcast, a video clip uploaded to YouTube or a VoiceThread embedded in a blog or wiki, that most people are still getting comfortable in handling. Mixbook is a tool that allows anyone to tell a story by creating and publish it as a book!

"I've been using YouTube all wrong. Usually, I just upload my own video and search by typing a query in the box to see what comes up. I have recently learnt some new ways to get more out of the tool and turn you into a YouTube rock star. Here they are:"

"One of the webinars that I did yesterday for Simple K12 was about useful YouTube features for teachers and students. If you couldn't attend the webinar you can still get the handout that I shared during the webinar. 8 Overlooked Useful YouTube Tools is embedded below as a PDF. You can also click here to grab it from Box.com."

"With more than 7 billion videos on YouTube, it can be challenging to curate what's best for your classroom. But amid all of the frivolous, silly, or even obnoxious content, there are gems to be found. On top of this, some truly unique genres and types of videos have sprung from the platform. One of these -- the video essay -- can be a great tool for media-literacy education. Here's why: Video essays model for students how YouTube can be a platform for critical communication."

In this day and age, teachers need to use every resource at their disposal. With distance learning being something that doesn't seem to be going anywhere soon, one of those tools may very well be YouTube. This platform is a great place to create a video that corresponds with your curriculum for your students to access them at any time.  If you are going to use the platform, there are extra considerations that need to be made. There are also YouTube features every teacher should know how to use before posting those educational videos. Below we are going to take a look at those and why you should use the platform. Let's start with that question first.

"Available as a web-based tool or an iPad application, Padlet allows teachers and students to create virtual bulletin boards where collaboration, reflection, publishing and sharing of information can occur. As a synchronous learning environment, Padlet supports interaction, sharing, and collaboration in real-time or as an asynchronous learning environment allowing students to learn at their own pace and time. When using Padlet, users can display information in a wide variety of file types, including: links to Google Docs, display images of student work, text, audio reflections, and videos from the camera roll or YouTube. Padlet's formats  allow for a more customized experience for users. A mind-mapping format called Canvas provides the opportunity to move sticky notes to facilitate the creation of mind maps. Users  create visual connections among concepts, facts, and thoughts while providing a way to organize and synthesize information. Recently, I've begun to use Canvas as my "go to" mind-mapping tool. The Canvas format enables teachers and students to work collaboratively across devices and settings while helping learners to see relationships between concepts.  Canvas gives students a way to visually represent their thinking while providing teachers insight into a student's understanding of a specific concept or idea."

"Disclaimer: Downloading content from YouTube can be interpreted as a violation of it's terms of service. Back in November 2009 I surveyed readers for their opinions as to whether or not teachers should download content from YouTube. The survey results indicate that most teachers would download YouTube content, but there were also some very passionate comments against that action. You can read the post and the subsequent comments here. "

"Within YouTube there is a free tool for creating audio slideshows. You supply the images and YouTube supplies the audio track. You can pick from thousands of audio tracks to match to your slides. After adding your slides and selecting an audio track you can add speech bubbles to your slides. I demonstrate all of these steps in the video embedded below."

"The use of various applications enable a workflow. Through clever use of various tools a product can be achieved that at first may have been thought impossible with an iPad. Truth be told the iPad is often perceived as simply a consumption device, however, the iPad can achieve a lot more than first thought and is an amazing device that can support, learning and product creation. To import a video from 'YouTube' to 'Keynote' follow this step by step guide. "

"There is now a face blurring tool in the YouTube video editor"

"With the popularity of flipped classrooms showing no sign of waning, a new crop of web tools for teachers are emerging to help support instruction. In this post, I take a look at three ways that teachers can add questions to a YouTube video for their students to answer when watching a video at home or on their own."