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WatchKnow (http://watchknow.com)

common sense media says

G-rated video site for kids teaches math, science, and more.

parents & educators say
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What parents need to know

Parents need to know that this nonprofit "YouTube for kids" is safe and educational. Launched by Larry Sanger, a cofounder of Wikipedia, it aims to collect all the educational videos on the Web that are suitable for kids in one convenient place. Most of the 11,000-plus clips up so far are reposted from other kid-safe sites such as National Geographic and TeacherTube. There's no sex, no violence, no bad language and no ads, just interesting videos, cartoons and animations on a wide array of school subjects, many with age-appropriateness ratings to help guide parents.

Educational value: Thousands of short educational videos culled from TeacherTube, National Geographic, and other high-quality sources and sorted into 16 categories such as literature and social studies teach kids a range of topics they can use to excel in school and their personal lives. Kids can repost their own videos and rate videos on the site.
Positive messages: Kids discover that short videos can make learning school topics like math, science, geography, and history fun. Kids 13 and older can enjoy a sense of contribution by uploading their own educational videos that they find on YouTube and other partner sites.
Violence: Not applicable.
Sex: Not applicable.
Language: Not applicable.
Consumerism: Not applicable.
Drinking, drugs, & smoking: Not applicable.
Privacy & safety: Kids can watch any video on the site without sharing personal info. Registration is required only if users want to post videos themselves, perform a wiki function such as editing a category, or enter the site's contests.
Our ratings and reviews are informed by child development guidelines. Learn more.

More on WatchKnow

What to talk about

Talk to your kids
  • Discuss the role videos have come to play in our lives. They entertain, they inform -- and they can even make school subjects like social studies fun.
  • What are kids' favorite educational videos on the site and why? Do these videos make you interested in creating a video yourself?
  • Discuss how videos can help us learn but don't replace the experience of a live classroom. Set limits on how much computer time kids have.

Is it any good?

Is it any good?
 
WatchKnow, as in "You watch, you know," is an attractively designed wiki holding thousands of educational videos and other media for kids. Everything is conveniently sorted into categories and subcategories. (For instance, history breaks out into ancient history, Asian history, world history, and so on.)  Registered users can edit the categories and video descriptions to improve the site. The content is high quality and far-ranging, explaining just about every topic kids are taught in school and more. Particularly helpful is the site’s two-way age slider, which parents can use to zero in on the best videos for the child's level of maturity, say everything geared for between ages 10 and 13. Not everything is rated, and some videos, such as the ones we ran across on weightlifting, are skewed more for adults. But it's all clean and overall a terrific educational resource. 

Online interaction: Registered users can leave comments and join a mailing list that serves as a discussion forum.  When we visited the site was still so new that there were very few comments left after the videos.

This review was written by Carla Thornton
 
 

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Most useful reviews by all members

DadHomeschooler
adult
7
 
WatchKnow free educational videos! Awesome!
WatchKnow rocks! It's relevant, interesting, current, and Kid Safe! 22,000 videos and 3,000 categories, all easy to find. Love it!
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helped me decide (7) | had useful details (9) | read my mind (7)
solar_system_118
adult
2
 
Videos are boring.
I'm bored with this site, and what 13 year old would watch these? I'd say 2-7 range may actually find some interest.
Flag as inappropriate 
was this review useful?
helped me decide (8) | had useful details (6) | read my mind (5)

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About our rating system
ON: Content is appropriate for kids this age.
PAUSE: Know your child, some content may not be right for some kids
OFF: Not age appropriate for kids this age
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