Well, you doesn't know about You Tube? It has become rather ubiquitous, hasn't it? From political messages to videos of police abuse to the ability to share music and humor, it seems nearly everything is on the internet via You Tube these days. And students love it, so finding good ways to incorporate it could be really useful in the library.
Most of my past use of You Tube has been to use links that friends have sent me. Mainly, these are humorous videos. This exercise got me to log on and explore what is there. The site is easy to navigate and searches seem to return pretty good results. It is nice that most videos are tagged and have enough of a summary that you don't have to look at the video to know what it is about. Of course, the quality of the videos themselves vary widely. Some are well edited. Others look like they were posted by college kids who had nothing better to do. The picture and sound qualities are also hit and miss. Because videos can range from professional quality to "as good as my aunt's vacation videos", I would certainly preview ANY video before using it in class.
I could see linking some videos to the library website if I had any kind of tutorials or instructional videos. I think kids would be more apt to use those than read through a tutorial. You Tube can also be a useful resource for me or other teachers who are looking for ways to convey information in a video form. For example, I found videos of popular young adult authors being interviewed, examples of book talks and library orientations, and a recording of the Nicaragua National anthem. I also found some things that were such bad quality that it inspires you to think about making your own video. Perhaps that could be a project to take on in the future. I have even had teachers find old videos posted that they used to have copies of but have lost, so there is an archival component to You Tube that can also be useful.
Although there are many uses for You Tube, I have to admit sharing humor is still one of my favorite ones. I have found some common ground with some kids I have been trying to establish relationships with by sharing our favorite humor links. Tonight's experimentation encourages me to look further into ways that it could be used in my teaching.
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2 comments:
Are you able to access You Tube from your school computers? How handy! Our tech department blocks it due to excessive bandwidth usage (if everyone were to be watcing at once...) Humor is definitely a good medium to use periodically in ANY educational setting.
Actually, our district does block it, so this is more of a wish list of things I'd like to do. Maybe someday, we'll figure out a way of dealing with this conflict of interests.
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