What do you like or dislike about YouTube? Did you find videos that would be useful for teaching and learning? Is YouTube restricted in your building?
Sad to say, but I haven't had much experience with YouTube. The times I have used it, it's been to look at funny clips or music videos. It was new for me to use it from an educational perspective.
When looking up math concepts, I found it interesting how many videos just had teachers working out a problem. I give them credit for creating the video and posting it, but it wasn't interesting to me. I guess I felt like it should be more entertaining and creative. At one site, kids had posted comments like, "Thank you, you explained it so much better than my teacher." This shows they use it for educational purposes too. I wanted to leave some comments at some of these sites, but it wasn't enabled. It actually took me a few more videos to watch before I found something interesting and was able to post.
Just like any website, I'd caution students on the accuracy and credibility of what is in the video. On the flip side, kids learn from each other and they may be interested what one of their peers have to say. Also, some videos like "Public School House Rock" look like the familiar School House Rock, but it was a parody from Mad TV. This would be something parents should be cautious about.
One of my teaching partner's got around issue of YouTube being blocked by our district by having her own laptop with her own wireless Internet provider access. She used YouTube to show a video of a Shakespeare theatre during our drama unit. It was a quick clip that added to the lesson. When the kids saw that she could get onto YouTube, they didn't think it was fair that they couldn't use it at school. I know a lot of them use it at home.
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Hey Kristie,
ReplyDeleteI think I can guess the teacher that used her own laptop to show the YouTube video, but that's not what surprised me. What surprised me is that the kids thought it was unfair. They are still at the "we can't so you can't either" frame of mind, but they should realize that we are professionals and have more privileges than they do. As educators, if we find something of value from You Tube that adds to our lessons, shouldn't we have the creative freedom to use them and even suggest videos to parents? If I find some useful math lessons, I plan on using them in my classroom.