YouTube’s Player for Education is a secure, embedded video player designed for educational tools to improve the way students and educators experience video content. Player for Education enables a view-only, teacher-led experience for educational YouTube videos in a focused environment without ads, recommendations, and other features that may be distracting to students.
Key features
Player for Education removes distractions and protects student privacy by default. You do not need to adjust settings to turn off features manually.
- Distraction-free experience: Player for Education is a view-only experience for students to watch one video at a time when assigned by their instructor. Player for Education removes certain features to simplify the viewer experience.
- Simplified watch page: The comment section, likes, shares, 'Watch Later' buttons, channel subscribe buttons, and end screens are hidden. The video description, including outbound links and tags uploaded by creators, is also removed.
- No external links: Channel icons and YouTube logos are not clickable, which prevents students from navigating outside of their learning platform to YouTube.
- No content recommendations: End-screen suggestions, paused video thumbnails, and sidebar recommendations are removed.
- No ads: Video and banner ads do not appear during playback.
- Privacy protections: The player does not save watch history or build user profiles for advertising purposes.
- Teacher-led management: Teachers are able to assign and embed specific videos to their students in the player.
Add a video in Google Classroom
YouTube Player for Education is the default player in Google Classroom. To assign a video as a teacher:
- Sign in to Google Classroom.
- Select your class, then click Classwork.
- Click Create
Assignment.
- Click the YouTube icon.
- Search for a video or paste a link, then click Add video.
Other supported EdTech platforms
In addition to Google Classroom, Player for Education is available on the following educational platforms:
- Canvas
- Edpuzzle
- GoGuardian/PearDeck
- HelloWonder
- HonorEd
- Kahoot!
- Screencastify!
- Seesaw
- Teachmint
- Wayground/Quizzizz
- WeVideo
If your institution’s educational platform is not listed, contact your network administrator about future integrations.
Frequently asked questions
Is the YouTube Player for Education a separate app?
No, Player for Education is not a standalone app like YouTube Kids. It is an embedded video player integrated with educational tools already used by educators, such as Google Classroom.
What videos can students watch in the player?
Students can only play the specific videos assigned by a teacher. Most YouTube videos are available for teachers to assign, subject to the content control settings chosen by your school's administrator. Videos that content owners have opted to restrict from embedding will not be available.
Can my students still access the YouTube website?
Students do not need access to the YouTube website to use Player for Education. As such, school district administrators can leave the youtube.com domain blocked on school-issued laptops or at the network-level. This would allow students to only have access to videos teachers assign through the Player for Education, which operates through a dedicated Player for Education domain (youtubeeducation.com).
Are accessibility features supported?
Player for Education includes built-in controls to support diverse learning needs, including closed captions, playback speed controls, and the option to select audio tracks in other languages when provided by the creator.