The other day a parent asked me to review the steps for embedding a YouTube video on a blog or in PowerPoint. It’s easy to do. It’s also useful for parents to know a bit about using videos because, in the coming years, your child will likely be using YouTube videos as a part of reports and presentations.
As an example I am using the Mayo Clinic’s video guide to social media. Mayo produced this in-house movie to serve as a teaching tool for members of the medical community, informing staff about social media user responsibilities. The video is a model for any organization that wants to help employees learn more about using social media as well as other digital issues in professional life.
Once you discover a YouTube video that you want to share or embed and know where you want to put it (blogs, PowerPoint, etc.), scroll down so you can see the words just below the video. Click on the word share.
When you click on share, the window expands to the image below. This time you will click on the word embed.
The window again expands to give you additional options, including some HTML code to use to embed the video.
You can add specifications to your YouTube video by checking any of the boxes. Also you can choose a size or figure out a custom size (but be sure to do the math and figure out the general proportions). YouTube will recommend the next clips for your to watch if you check that box, but I never do, because I do not want to lose control over the content that my students or readers encounter. Two of the box options offer increased privacy. Each time you click or unclick a box, the embed code changes slightly. Clicking on any of the question mark links next to the boxes takes a user to more detailed explanations about how things work (Note the question marks in the picture above don’t work because they are a part of the image rather than live links.)
At the end of this customization process, highlight and copy the embed code. Writers do not need to know much about the code — just how to copy and paste it into a content destination. Whenever I write a blog post and use a YouTube video, I paste the code into my draft. WordPress, where this blog lives, provides writers with the choice of a visual editor — an editor that offers what you see is what you get with point and click editing options — or a text editor where writers edit adding HTML code. Most of the time I use the former. When I finish my draft, I click on the text editor (which has lots of HTML code, locate the spot where I want my video to appear, and paste in the copied code. The process is even easier for Google’s Blogger because Google owns YouTube.
Here’s what the Mayo Clinic video looks like after I paste in the embedding code,
To embed a YouTube video in PowerPoint for Windows, go to insert/video from website, where a box opens for you to paste the embed code. After pasting click the insert button. The video will appear as a big box, and you can proceed to customize within PowerPoint.
Embedding a YouTube video in PowerPoint for Mac is a bit different because you can only add files from a computer. The Mac system wants you to download the YouTube video first and then upload it to PowerPoint or edit it in iMovie and then upload it. To download a YouTube video you need a special downloading site or software. My current YouTube downloading site favorite is KeepVid, but sites like come and go with some frequently. (Check out a CNET downloader recommendation here.)
To download a YouTube video for Mac PowerPoint, paste the link into the downloading window, choose the type of file you want (MP4 is a good choice), and specify where you want the file to be saved on your computer. When you begin this process, many of the downloading sites will ask you to add an applet to your computer. After you have the YouTube saved locally on your computer, go back to PowerPoint, click on insert, movie, navigate to the file, and click insert.
Links With Information About Embedding Video in Blogs or Webpages
Links With Information About Embedding Video in PowerPoint (Windows)
Embedding a Video in Mac PowerPoint
Media! Tech! Parenting! 
2 thoughts on “Embedding a YouTube Video – Getting Started”