Journeying
Like Alice, falling down the hole, I find myself in a world that appears fantastical and ever changing.
I thought I knew a little about Youtube and have bookmarks all over my menu on my favorites-mostly music and “how-to” videos. Three versions of “April in Paris” to accompany my Paris trip’s slideshow. Yes, Ella’s was the best.
How to flame the crust of the crème brulee without turning it into charcoal?
Got that covered too. I loved the cute and fluffy inspirational videos and keep returning to my all time “we are all human” favorite, Where in the Hell Is Matt?
But as I researched the parameters of video sharing, the possibilities ballooned or perhaps I shrank, just as if I had bitten the small side of the mushroom.
ASIDE: Has anyone figured out the physiological intimidation factor of approaching new web tools and learned how to anticipate and reduce the fear and self-loathing this creates in new learners?
Research
Of the myriad of issues that surround video sharing in an educational application I have discovered that video is steadily edging out TV. According to Jacqui Cheng (2009), 20% of online video viewers are watching less TV, as sites like Youtube, Netflix, Google Video, Hulu, and arr matey are gaining popularity.
Viewers are fed up with commercials, reality TV, insipid crime shows and talk shows that dominate commercial networks, preferring not those videos professionally made, but the everyday user posted garden variety.
The Council for Research Excellence (CRE) (2008) found that US viewers watched some 12 billion videos on the Internet up 45 percent from a year earlier. Unsurprisingly, Google owned the largest share of that pie thanks to YouTube. And even though mobile video viewing was just then getting off the ground in 2008, NBC said that it managed to get almost half a million users to watch the 2008 Olympic Games on their mobile devices, many of whom had never done so before.
So if TV viewing is going the way of the Victrola, YouTube opens up a world of possibilities in the learning community. Masters (2009) describes how within moments, a drafting or engineering student can view the design and construction of an NFL stadium using time lapse photography, while a biology student can view computer animation of photosynthesis.
So this five-year-old phenomenon is only going to gather steam and push us educators out of the rabbit hole if we do not grab the cake and bite. Further research into video sharing reveals that video sharing options are exploding and include TeacherTube, SchoolTube, United Streaming, OneWorldTV, and Yahoo! Video, Google Video, and MSN Soapbox.
I used YouTube as my demo site as it is a Google product, the videos are archived in an easy-to-use database, run and organized by users worldwide and it is straightforward to subscribe to and search.
A search for Alice in Wonderland for example, brings up classic Disney clips all the way up to Dr. McCoy’s fantasy scene from an episode of Star Trek. Only my imagination or memory is limited!
Mullen & Wedwick (2008) in their study of middle school students’ response to Web 2.0 tools in the classroom found that students effectively engaged in self-directed learning by using Youtube to provide a visual and auditory context for expanding their vocabulary, for example, particularly in understanding metaphorical meanings of text. Students were able to quickly master Youtube searches and create their own videos to reinforce hard to remember non-memorable learnings such as grammar rules, for example.
Video sharing sites however, are not without their problems in a school application. Mullen and Wedwick observe that
YouTube has been included in a recent Web site banning trend among many school districts. There are highly inappropriate videos available on the site; however, there are also priceless tools for education. Instead of eliminating this resource from the education community, administrators, teachers, and students need to be taught howto use this valuable tool.
Teachers however, need to be aware of the pitfalls of Youtube sites and may for the time being have students perform searches on safe sites like SchoolTube or TeacherTube.
Implications/Applications
The Lunchtime Vasectomy
So my most successful use of Youtube at school was an unplanned but totally responsive to an inquiry of a student.
I was gathering my Pregnant and Parenting students together while we were eating our egg salad sandwiches that we had made from the previous cooking class, and our Family and Community Support Services (FCSS) coordinator was setting up her laptop for her birth control workshop. As usual the best discussions emerge while we are sharing food and the topic of birth control rolled around to the “guy’s ownership” of birth control.
Why that would be the vasectomy! my perky, newly wed FCSS coordinator responded. And before you could say Snip, she had up and running in full frontal colour and sound, an actual vasectomy being performed in between our egg salad and iced tea.
Wow! The girls squeaked. Guys would actually do that? Well why not, Perky snorted; it’s a whole heck of a lot easier that you girls having your tubes tied! Well, that was an invitational to watch “Tubes Tied” the sequel, and the learning wave swept us all away to a new understanding of what was possible through the tiny cameras on online surgery.
Of course, you silly, Youtube is blocked on our district server. My hands are clean though. Her laptop, her search for the neighbour’s unprotected wireless server.
Me? I was simply making egg salad sandwiches as per my Foods class lesson plan.
My students? They learned an amazing lesson of an instructor’s open and honest responsiveness to their questions, taking them and their worlds very seriously.
This isn’t going to go away. The issue is one of appropriate access and how school divisions are going to come to grips with Pandora’s box. Or should I say, Alice’s mushroom.
References
Cheng, Jaqui. (2009). http://arstechnica.com/media/news/2009/07/report-20-of-online-video-fans-watch-less-tv.ars
Masters, A.(2009, March). 4 Ways to Engage Today's Generation of Students. Techniques, 84(3), 8-9. Retrieved July 14, 2009, from ProQuest Education Journals. (Document ID: 1667558201).
Mullen, R., & Wedwick, L.. (2008). Avoiding the Digital Abyss: Getting Started in the Classroom with YouTube, Digital Stories, and Blogs. The Clearing House, 82(2), 66-69. Retrieved July 14, 2009, from ProQuest Education Journals. (Document ID: 1592650451).
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