Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Happy New Year! and YouTube

Welcome to 2012! I hope you all had a relaxing break. It was fun to read what folks were thankful for technology-wise and see some of your goals in the last post. To me, it's amazing how quickly document cameras, projectors, and ready student access in the classroom have become something we've just come to expect and rely on in our daily lives as teachers. I think that's real progress--seeing technology as a reliable, essential ingredient to making teaching easier and learning more engaging, thus enhancing our Classroom 10 objectives.

Now, onto this week's post: YouTube. I suspect you are all using video in some way, shape, or form in the classroom, so I thought I'd take a few minutes (paragraphs) to talk (write) about YouTube. As you know, YouTube is blocked at school for students, but it is open to teachers. Please note that if you ever get an Access Denied! warning as a teacher, you likely only need to log off and log back on to solve the problem. This video explains the problem and the solution.

Back to YouTube. Yes, there is lots of content on YouTube that is inappropriate and just plain stupid, but that shouldn't stop us from exploring, using, and sharing the incredible resources available there with our students. In fact, I'm betting most of you already do. This blog post offers tips for making YouTube easier to use in the classroom. Also, if you scroll down to the bottom and look at the comments, you'll see a reference to YouTube for Schools. Once we have our school Google accounts set up (coming later this spring) we'll register our schools. However, in the meantime, you can still check out the "Edu" side of YouTube here, and I encourage you to do so! For instance, do you know about Kahn Academy? Kahn Academy (whose videos are readily available through their site or YouTube channel) offers a huge range of short educational videos/tutorials. Then there are the incredible array of MIT, Stanford, and other university courses that are available. It's really something! Certainly, there may not be something for everyone, but as access to education content is becoming more open and available we need to know about these resources and share them with students when appropriate.

For this week's assignment, after you've looked over some of the links I shared, I'd like you to share how YOU are using content from YouTube (or other video resources such as Discovery Streaming, Vimeo, TeacherTube, etc.) in your classroom.
Posted by Kimberly Allison at 9:22 AM

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Brooke Dillon's avatar

Brooke Dillon · 691 weeks ago

Thanks for the new sources. I didn't know aobut Teacher Tube, and I'd forgotten about Discovery Streaming. I've been using YouTube to show something visually, as in the path that travelers took as they traveled to Canterbury (for Canterbury Tales), or to show Polanski's version of the witch scene in Macbeth, as it's too violent to show the entire movie. I use it, as well, to add humor--we watched a guinea pig version of the medieval morality play, Everyman--and relevance, as students see that others are studying these classics and making them modern. Sometimes, it's just to add a few minutes of fun and laughter, which isn't a bad goal, either, when the video ties to our lesson.
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Joelle Tweit's avatar

Joelle Tweit · 691 weeks ago

I didn't know about the teacher tube and will try to incorporate more into my class as my different topics come up. I love the View Pure tool and the hyperlinking to a certain point within a YouTube video. that would be awesome to do when I find videos that fit the curriculum. I do use united streaming in my class quite a bit as it has good videos that relate to the curriculum and give the students important information quickly and also shows them videos and pictures that I wouldn't be able to show them without the United Streaming.
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Hilary Ledford (CH)'s avatar

Hilary Ledford (CH) · 691 weeks ago

It's hard to find videos that work for French on Discovery Education BUT I use YouTube a lot. I have found some pretty good videos explaining different verb conjugations and tenses. I also use YouTube almost daily to show a music video for an authentic French song (which the kids LOVE!). I'm always exploring new videos and finding new songs and the kids often will email me links to songs they like and that I can then incorporate.
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Marie A Page's avatar

Marie A Page · 691 weeks ago

I love YouTube and their videos. I use the often in class when I cannot take my students to certain fieldtrips. I have used them to show students in animal science how to clip birds wings, clipping cats and dogs toenails, how to tattoo a rabbits ear and so on. Also when students are absent and I no longer have an animal to show them how to give a shot to ( lets say I was demonstrating to the class how to give a dog a vaccination) and the student missed the demonstration - well I can show them a video on youtube. Or I can also post one on the site as well. This is a great tool in the classroom, I love it!!!!
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Jennifer Dunham CH's avatar

Jennifer Dunham CH · 690 weeks ago

I don't use a lot of video in my Algebra classroom. I have used a couple of YouTube pythagorean theorem videos just to lighten it up and have used a couple of discovery videos on factoring since we get to it very late in the year and it is a way to catch at least a little bit of interest (even if it is to complain about how cheesy it is). I didn't know about the YouTube for teachers and will big checking it out soon. I have a lesson that I need to be gone for later this month and would love to find a good video equations of parallel and perpendicular lines to help out my sub. I also didn't know about the hyperlinking to a very specific spot. That is very useful!
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Rhonda Ham CH's avatar

Rhonda Ham CH · 690 weeks ago

The way I have seen YouTube videos used most effectively in the classroom is when students have created their own as an end of a unit project. They not only have to understand the content knowledge, but they have to demonstrate an understanding of how the visual and auditory effects relate to the learning.
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Scott Hagensen CH's avatar

Scott Hagensen CH · 690 weeks ago

I did not know that there was a teacher tube. I have already used it onced since learning about it. I like to show videos as a introduction to what we are doing in class. The students really seem to get excited for what we are learning after they see a video. Another good video site I use in Discovery Streaming. They have a ton of great videos and teacher manuals that go a long witht he movie. I think one of the most important things is preview the video before you show it to the class. I have heard bad stories about teacher who did not preview the videos, they got in big time trouble.
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Ryan Walston's avatar

Ryan Walston · 686 weeks ago

Is Teachertube blocked for students?

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