So it happened. The Geekling had a project to do on animals, so we looked up the animal in YouTube to try and get a view of how it lived in its natural habitat. We clicked on the first video (somehow adding it to the playlist) and when it ended another video came up, and that video was, um, questionable. I’m not going to say the name of the animal we searched for, but I will say that the videos that came up on the side bar afterward were NOT kid friendly.
After a few crazy seconds of covering the Geekling’s ears and eyes and frantically trying to turn off the video that actually came up I realized there has to be a better place for kids to view video clips online. YouTube is a great place to view videos, but it’s also a great place to view not so good videos, which is why I was thrilled I found ZuiTube
Some of you might remember a few years ago there was a service called Totlol that approved YouTube videos for kids eyes, and collected them into one portal like site. Totlol seemingly disappeared, but ZuiTube is basically the same thing. They have over 6,000 channels available that contain YouTube videos reviewed and approved by parents and teachers that are easy for kids to access and view.
ZuiTube has a really kid friendly interface. You could easily search for ‘transformers’ or ‘monkeys’ or ‘slime’ and get a host of approved videos on those topics, or click through the pages easy to use menus to hit the same topics. The videos that come up might be TV show clips, other clips from movies, but as mentioned before, KidZui (the company that runs ZuiTube) claims that they are all pre-screened.
I’m not thrilled that commercials come up in the search for the videos, because I think it's unfair to parents and kids. I hope KidZui is making an effort to ensure that no ads targeting products for kids are making it into the channels. (I also wish they would mix in the occasional video about ‘how to clean your room’ or ‘why it drives your mom crazy when you leave your legos on the floor and she steps on them and says really bad words’ but, I digress.)
If you’re looking for a safer environment for your child to view YouTube videos, try ZuiTube.
(Obviously, what one parent approves might not be the same thing that another parent agrees with, so as always I urge you parents to take a look through the web page first and decide for yourself, but so far it has been a win for us! )
ZuiTube
My Recommended Ages: 5 and Up
What do you think about the service?
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