Lewiston board considers YouTube access for students

LEWISTON — Administrators are looking into a way to offer filtered YouTube access to students on school devices. Superintendent Jake Langlais introduced the idea at a School Committee meeting Monday night. “I believe the benefits outweigh the risks,” he said. “I think there is massive benefit to YouTube’s educational platform.” The online video platform offers educational material that would greatly enrich remote instruction, he said. Teachers have full access, and students had it until a few years ago. “The media that is added to YouTube on a daily basis is incredible,” Langlais wrote in a memo to the committee. “Much of the content is educationally purposeful.” He noted that SAT prep courses are offered through YouTube and Lewiston Public Schools students could not access them. However, some content is inappropriate and even disturbing, he said. Filters likely would not catch all the inappropriate material, David Theriault, director of instructional technology for Lewiston Public Schools, said. He said about 500 hours of videos per minute are uploaded to the platform. In a presentation to the School Committee, Theriault said he and his staff tested filtering systems. “In our testing of Restricted Mode, videos with mature content were still readily available for…
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